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Woman’s National Liberal Union. 





REPORT 


—OF THE— 




Convention for Organization 


WASHINGTON, D. C. 


February 2^th and 25th, 1800. 


Edited by MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE. 


“ Of what avail is plow or sail, 
Or land or life if Freedom fail ?” 


Price, 50 Cts. each, 3 for $1.00. For sale by Mrs. Gage, 
Fayetteville, N. Y. 


SYRACUSE, N. Y.: 
MASTERS & STONE, PRINTERS, 
1890. 


























V 









Woman’s National Liberal Union. 


REPOET 

—OF THE— 


Convention for Organization 


February 22fth and 25th, 1890. 



EDITED BY MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE. 


“ Of what avail is plow or sail, 
Or land or life if Freedom fail ?” 



oTorC" 

1890 


(y 



SYRACUSE, N. Y.: 
MASTERS & STONE, PRINTERS, 
1890. 










St* 


\ 



INTRODUCTORY. 


A brief sketch of the influences which led to the formation of this 
society may be admissible. Having worked in the woman suffrage 
ranks since 1852, holding some of the most important offices both 
in State and National associations, editing a woman suffrage paper 
for a number of years, devoting much time and thought to the ques¬ 
tion of woman’s enfranchisement, having also studied the influence 
v of the Church as well as the State upon woman’s position, Mrs. Gage 
became convinced that the teaching of the Church was the great 
obstacle to woman’s freedom. Since 1878, both by speech and res¬ 
olution, Mrs. Gage and others whose sentiments were similar to her 
own, have striven to educate the National Woman Suffrage Asso¬ 
ciation into this line of thought, and prove to women where the real 
hindrance to their freedom lay. Having devoted so great a number 
of years to this form of education within the old society, it seemed 
necessary to form a new organization that should start its existence 
upon an entirely different basis, and from its foundation have no 
hesitancy in pointing out the cause of woman’s still-continued polit¬ 
ical slavery. 

Other influences of the Church bearing upon our national life 
having also within a few years become prominent, added to the need 
of a more radical woman’s society. After a few weeks correspond¬ 
ence with friends, Mrs. Gage became convinced that such need was I 
widely felt, both by women and men. From all parts of the country, 
the Pacific Coast, the great North West, New England, the Middle : 
States, and many Southern States, the replies were highly favorable. 
Much joy and gratitude were expressed that a radical societv in I 
which the progressive thinkers among woman suffragists as well as : 
other liberals could unite, and as a result, a call was issued contain¬ 
ing the signatures of women from twenty-five states. A large! 
number of names from states not represented in the call, as Montana, 
Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Florida, Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota 
and Maine, arrived too late to be appended. 





THE CALL. 


LIBERAL WOMAN’S CONVENTION. 

A convention for the purpose of uniting the liberal-suffrage and 
other liberal-thought women of the country in a national organization 
will be held in Willard Hall (adjoining Willard’s Hotel), Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., February 24-25th, 1890. 

For several reasons the woman suffrage reform advances slowly. 
Men trained from infancy by the Church, to a belief in woman’s 
inferiority, are loath to concede her capable of self-government. 
Four new States have recently been admitted to the union, neither 
one possessing a republican form of government as required by the 
Federal constitution ; neither one recognizing the right of self-gov¬ 
ernment as inhering in its women citizens. Of Wyoming, now seek¬ 
ing Statehood, with a constitution providing for woman suffrage, the 
press declares that an applicant for admission coming with this 
condition may not find its entrance into Statehood thereby facilitated, 
but because of it, it “ may be discovered by wary congressmen to 
have insufficient population.” 

Such lessons as these should not be lost upon woman. 

Existing woman suffrage societies have also ceased to be pro¬ 
gressive. The new comers and many of the old ones fear to take an 
advance step, and from motives of business or social policy, cater to 
their worst enemy, the Church. We therefore deem a broader plat¬ 
form necessary in order to reach the many-sided thought of the 
country; to more clearly show the cause of delay in the recognition 
of woman’s demands ; and to promote fearlessness in denunciation 
of that cause. 

Second. A crisis in the nation’s life is at hand, The encroach¬ 
ments of “ The Christian Party in Politics,” composed of both 
Catholics and Protestants,—its aim a union of Church and State— 
were never as great as at the present time. The decrees of the 
Plenary Council held in Baltimore, 1884, the speeches and resolutions 
of the recent Catholic Congress in the same city, the effort towards 
Parochial schools, &c., shows the drift of Catholic thought in this 
direction; but to no greater extent than is the like purpose of Prot¬ 
estant effort made known by the work of the National Reform Asso¬ 
ciation, the American Sabbath Union, the Women’ Christian Tem¬ 
perance Union, the discussions, canons and resolutions of State and 
National Ministerial Bodies, together with the various bills before 
Congress for religious education in schools, Sunday Rest, &c. 

Therefore not alone to aid her own enfranchisement—valueless 




4 


without religious liberty—but in order to help preserve the very life 
of the Republic, it is imperative that women should unite upon a 
platform of opposition to the teaching and aim of that ever most 
unscrupulous enemy of freedom—the Church. 

On Behalf of the States Represented by our Names : 


Matilda Joslyn Gage, New York. 
Josephine Cables Aldrich, Alabama. 
Helen H. Gardener, New York. 

Eliza B. Burnz, “ 

Eliza Archard Connor, “ 

Mrs. Lucy Hudson, “ 

Mrs. H. L. Green, “ 

Mrs. D. G. Cox, “ 

Mathilde F. Wendt, “ 

Susan H. Wixon, Massachusetts. 
Bertha M. Wixon, “ 

Yoltairin de Cleyre, Pennsylvania. 
Dr. Mary Herma Aiken, Iowa. 
Mary M. Clark, “ 

Clara Foltz, California. 

Laura de Force Gordon, “ 

Mary A. White, “ 

Mrs. Anna F. Smith, “ 

Lucy L. Churchill, Ohio. 

Ruth S. Churchill, “ 

Amarala Martin, Illinois. 

Lucinda B. Chandler, “ 

Sarah J. Paine, “ 

Marilla M. Ricker, New Hampshire. 
Etta D. Kelso, Colorada. 

Nora M. Remsburg, Kansas. 
Nettie Corinne Grover, “ 


Carrie Johnson, Indiana. 

Sallie L. Wood, 

Minnie L. Baugh, Virginia. 

Arethusa L. Fobes, New Jersey. 
Dr. Madana Fuller de Hart, “ 

Eliza H. Rolen, North Carolina. 
Marietta M. Bones, So. Dakota. 
Jennie Smedley, 

Fannie L. Woodward, 

Jane Trumbull Stewart, “ 

Sarah Boone M’Cullum, “ 

Jane A. Mason, 

Emma H. Brown, “ 

Anna Stone White, “ 

Mrs. L. D. Bacon, Connecticut. 
Henrica Illiohan, Nebraska. 

Mary Baird Finch, “ 

Elizabeth Lisle Saxon,Washington. 
Mrs. F. C. Reynolds. “ 

Zerelda N. M’Coy, “ 

Fannie Holden Fowler, Michigan. 
Elizabeth A. Bryant, “ 

Nellie Broadhead Simmons, Wis. 
Mary E. Ticklin, Texas. 

Katharine Dunning Clark, Kentucky. 
Mattie P. Krekle, Missouri. 

Mary Emily Coues, Washington, D. C. 


For several weeks preceding the convention the liberal papers of 
the country announced it, while the Washington city papers were 
kept alive by contradictory reports" as to its purposes and the names 
of those who were to take part in its proceedings. Among the many 
preliminary notices, an editorial from the Post of January 29th, will 
give their general tone. 


From the Washington Post , January 29, 1890. 

THE NEW WOMAN’S MOVEMENT. 

Immediately upon the close of the Woman National Suffrage Convention, 
there will be inaugurated in this city a brand new woman’s national organ- 
, ization, a movement distinct from all previous lines of work, and unique 
in its absolute freedom from church creeds and political affiliations. Forty 



5 


years of the suffrage movement, sixteen of the Women’ Christian Tem¬ 
perance Union, the liberalizing spirit of such non-sectarian societies as the 
Christian Endeavor and the Kings’ Daughters, together with the opening 
doors of universities, the practice of men’s professions, and countless in¬ 
tellectual and philanthropic diversions of American women are about to 
crystallize in the anticipated movement. 

The purpose of this February convention, as gleaned from the present 
discussion in the press, is “to perfect an organization of liberal-thought 
women who can unitedly work against forces most destructive to the 
Republic.” According to the semi-official prospectus, issued by its leaders, 
we are given to understand that this new council is a self-elected body to 
sit upon the affairs of men. With charity for all and malice toward none, 
these earnest, intelligent, and determined women will classify, arraign, 
and pass sentence upon existing social evils, and upon political cowardice 
and crime. Not only will the civil emancipation of women, but the 
physical, mental, and spiritual emancipation of both men and women 
come under the legitimate jurisdiction of this latest revolutionary con¬ 
gress. The complex problem of marriage and divorce, with its environ¬ 
ment of civil and moral antagonisms, with its dependent relations of race, 
health and heredity, will be given careful and liberal consideration, and 
temperance of appetite and prohibition of prejudice will be taught to the 
world in lines that scientifically accord with individual freedom and 
human happiness. Such names as Clara Barton and Matilda Joslyn Gage 
in connection with the new movement bespeak its mission to suffering 
humanity, as well as its trepd toward political emancipation. 

And thus another spoke is fitted to the revolving wheel, and, unless the 
brakes are presently applied, even conservatism will be torn from its 
perch and whirled along to universal beatitude. Even while we cry out 
against the insidious reformers and the uncompromising cranks, they 
have us on the hip fast bound to their progressive coaches, and all ticketed 
for up-grade stations. 

It is a little early for criticism, but just the time to pass a word of com¬ 
mendation on any and every movement that is honestly and intelligently 
seeking to uplift humanity through the solution of vexing problems, that 
thwart and belie so many well meant laws and precepts of men. 

Mrs. Gage reached Washington ten days before the convention, 
and it is perhaps needless to say that the press was on the qui vive 
for points, and scarcely an hour passed that some one did not seek 
information upon the question. As is usual upon the inception of a 
new work a vast deal of misconception, misrepresentation and false¬ 
hood mingled with the reports concerning it, and not a few from the 
most surprising and unexpected sources. An interview with Mrs. 
Gage reported in the Washington Critic of February 22d, although 
not correct in all particulars, will somewhat show the line of opposi¬ 
tion, and also the trend of reportorial thought upon the forthcoming 
convention. 


6 


From, the Washington Critic , February 22, 1890. 

FREEDOM OF WOMEN. REVOLT AGAINST THE CHURCH THE BEGINNING OF IT. 

SO SAYS MRS. MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE. OBJECTING TO GOD IN THE CON¬ 
STITUTION OF THE FATHERS. POSITIVE OPINIONS OF THE LEADER OF 
THE “LIBERAL THINKERS.” REPUDIATING MAN-MADE DOGMAS. 

ACCEPTING THE DOCTRINES OF BUDDHA. 

“ I have no objection to telling yon anything relating to the proposed 
woman’s movement that would be likely to interest either women or the 
public in general.” 

This was in reply to questions asked of Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, now 
at Willard’s, in relation to the coming convention of Liberal Thinkers. 

Referring to the recent interviews with prominent suffrage leaders, 
which appeared in The Critic , Mrs. Gage said:— 

“ There are one or two erroneous opinions, apparently creeping in, con¬ 
cerning the movement—opinions which I would like to correct. In the 
first place I am not a secessionist or a traitor to the suffrage party, for the 
cause of enfranchisement is as dear to my heart as ever. I am still a 
suffragist, but I am more than a suffragist. I have found the old gar¬ 
ments useless and have put on a new robe. The slow growth of this 
movement I have made my study, and at last have been convinced that 
the stumbling blocks to woman’s political enfranchisement can only be 
rolled away by her mental and spiritual liberation. I have, with a few 
others of my kind, determined to inaugurate a peaceful but uncompro¬ 
mising resistance. Nor is it quite just toward the distinctly outlined 
purpose of the new movement to confuse the word non-religious and ir¬ 
religious. If war on creeds—man-made chains for the physical, moral 
and spiritual degradation of women, means irreligion—then I accept the 
term; but if a reverent acknowledgment of the Church invisible, and an 
earnest purpose and a burning zeal in the promotion of the intelligence, 
purity and independence of women may be reckoned as among the evi¬ 
dences of a true faith, then the proposed Liberal Union may be denomin¬ 
ated a religious body.” 

“ Then you regard the Church as the chain upon the liberty of woman?” 

“ I regard the Church as the basic principle of immorality in the world, 
and the most prolific source of pauperism, of crime, and of injustice to 
women,” replied Mrs. Gage, and the momentary light in her eye and the 
flush on her cheek belied the silver hair which ranks her among the 
veteran champions of women. 

“ The Church,” continued Mrs. Gage, “ is not built upon the New Testa¬ 
ment of Christ, who enjoined equality, but upon the ancient and mythical 
Jewish legend of Adam and Eve—the sin of the woman, her responsibility 
for evils, as well as a belief in her creation is an afterthought and the 
natural subject of the master for whom she was devised. There is no 
better proof of the aggregated falsehoods, which have crystallized into 
hide-bound creeds, than the indisputable fact of woman’s subjection under 
them and the stinging rebukes she received from the Church at each and 
every step she has made toward natural freedom of body, mind and soul.” 

“ And you see in woman’s revolt against the Church the beginnings of 
her freedom ?” 


7 


“ I do, and in fact the only avenue to her political equality and her 
domestic happiness. The truth as taught by the masters, in its simple 
purity, by Christ, by Buddha and the still more ancient authorities, I am 
prepared to accept; but the vast accumulation of man-made interpreta¬ 
tions and dogmas I utterly repudiate and deny. Neither the ancient 
Jewish records, the inspired biographies of the New Testament nor the 
written histories and unwritten laws of the Church express anything but 
the masculine mood and mind and character. 

“You have not hatched up this new movement as a result of any petty 
pique or disappointment in the suffrage ranks ?” 

‘ ‘ Far from it, for I have no spites nor any enemies to fight, nor yet any 
grievances to revenge. This movement is based on an old thought, an 
old hope, discussed by Mrs. Stanton and myself for many years, and it is 
a work to which her heart inclines, even though she is bound as the 
president of the National Association to refuse her public sanction.” 

“But the suffrage women representing the strong-minded element de¬ 
clare themselves not in sympathy with anything that looks like repudia¬ 
tion of the Church ?” 

Mrs. Gage smiled. “ You have not interviewed them all, and naturally 
only the leaders. Such women, even if sympathetic at heart, dread to 
peril what seems a real authority for possible humiliation. There must be 
in the founder of every new order opposed to conventional creeds some¬ 
thing of the brave and martyr.” 

“ What encouragement do you find ? You seem to have few followers 
here.” 

“ That may be,” replied Mrs. Gage, “ but with only four months of in¬ 
quiry I have received sufficient encouragement to call a convention.” 
“What is the nature of your constitution and the order of work ?” 

“Equal rights and equal physical, mental and spiritual liberty of action, 
thought and of faith for women and for men. There will be no cumber¬ 
some organization, crystallized constitution nor list of unnecessary officers. 
If the common purpose of human freedom is not strong enough, then the 
movement dies. The convention will be public and free, and there will 
be no dues, except voluntary ones.” 

“And after signifying by such a convention and public confession, your 
entire freedom from churches and conventional prejudices, what specific 
questions do you propose dealing with ?” 

“After a primary declaration of freedom to worship God according to 
the dictates of an enlightened conscience and increasing intelligence, we 
will turn our attention to dangers of centralization, the menace to free 
government in the threatened coalition of Church and State by such 
measures as the proposed Sunday Rest bill. This ‘God-in-the-Constitution’ 
clamor and the ‘secular Sunday’bigotry are mainly the outgrowth of 
misdirected feminine emotion and religious fanaticism.” “ Here,” said 
Mrs. Gage, “ is part of the platform adopted by the National Reform party 
as incorporated in an address of Miss Frances Willard, sentiments that 
distinctly menace our religious liberty and foreshadow the persecutions of 
the middle ages : 

“ Believing that Almighty God is the source of all power and authority 
in civil government; that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Ruler of nations ; 





8 


and that the revealed will of God is of supreme authority in civil affairs;— 

Remembering that this country was settled by Christian men, with 
Christian ends in view, and that they gave a distinctly Christian character 
to the institutions they established ;— 

Believing that a written constitution ought to contain explicit evidence 
of the Christian character and purpose of the nation which frames it, and 
perceiving that the silence of the Constitution of the United States in this 
respect is used as an argument against all that is Christian in the usage 
and administration of our government ; 

We, citizens of the United States, do associate ourselves under the fol¬ 
lowing articles, and pledge ourselves to God and to one another to labor, 
through wise and lawful means, for the ends herein set forth.” 

“ The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union—local, State, national, 
world-wide—has one vital organic thought, one absorbing purpose, one 
undying enthusiasm. It is that Christ shall he this world’s King— King of 
its courts, its camps, and its commerce ; King of its colleges and its clois¬ 
ters ; King of its customs and its constitutions. * * Concerning the 
platform of our next National Prohibition Convention, I am content to 
leave it substantially as it is, save that it should declare Christ and his law 
to he the true basis of government, and the supreme authority, in national 
as in individual life.” 

“Now, do you ‘catch the idea?’ This substantially means that the 
existing woman’s suffragists are working to have the nation governed by 
an hierachy, by religion, and to disfranchise every man, woman or child 
who does not believe in the Christian doctrines. 

“ The encroachments of ‘ The Christian Party in Politics,’composed of 
both Catholics and Protestants, were never so great as at the present time; 
therefore, in order to help preserve the very life of the republic, it is im¬ 
perative that women should unite on a platform of opposition to the teach¬ 
ings and aim of that ever most unscrupulous enemy of freedom—the 
Church. Hence I have called a convention for Monday to unite the liberal- 
suffrage and other liberal-thought women of the country and nation and 
form an organization.” 

“ These questions,” continued Mrs. Gage, “we will discuss without emo¬ 
tion, cant or bigotry. But progress is on, and our scope is only limited by 
the political and social problems at hand—capital and labor, with their 
outcropping socialistic and anarchistic tendencies, together with the ballot, 
temperance, and the laws of marriage and divorce.” 

“ Where are your allies, Mrs. Gage?” 

“A few of them will probably materialize,” smiled the lady, “ but the 
convention itself will be made an attractive one by such speakers as Mrs. 
Eliza Arcliard Conner, well-known in Washington; by Mrs. Josephine 
Cables Aldrich, one of the most gifted women in the country, and the 
masculine interest in our new movement will be ably presented by Dr. 
Elliott Coues. The first session will open at Willard Hall, Monday at 
10:30 a. M., and every man and woman concerned for political and relig¬ 
ious liberty is invited. The address of Dr. Coues, ‘ The Clerical Dilemma,’ 
will be delivered Tuesday evening, the second of the convention. How¬ 
ever, the formal programme will be presented in a few days, and no one,” 
continued the lady, in closing the interview, “ need long remain in doubt 
as to our platform.” 



REPORT 


OF THE 

CONVENTION FOR ORGANIZING 

THE 

Womans’ National Liberal Union, 

WILLARD HALL, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

ZF’e'toirr-cLaiiry' 24tlx and 25tlx 3 1890. 


EXECUTIVE SESSIONS. 

Preliminary to the Convention four Executive Sessions, composed 
of the delegates present in the city, were held in a private parlor of 
Willard Hotel. The first on Tuesday, the second Thursday after¬ 
noon at 3 o’clock, the third at 8 o’clock Saturday evening, the fourth 
on Sunday evening at 8 o’clock, Mrs. Gage presiding over the ses¬ 
sions of Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Saturday evening, 
Professor Elliott Coues on Sunday evening. At these sessions the 
name of the organization, its work and the business management of 
the Convention were discussed with somewhat: less formality than is 
connected with the proceedings of an already duly constructed body. 
The name chosen was unanimously approved except by Mrs. Gage, 
to whom the word ‘suffrage’ seemed also requisite. 

The Minutes of the Secretary not being attainable it is impossible 
to state the exact order of business. 

Committees were however appointed on Organization and Plan of 
Work; on Objects and on Resolutions. 

COMMITTEES. 

ORGANIZATION AND PLAN OF WORK. 

W. F. Aldrich, Alabama, Chairman ; Mrs. M. E. Coues, Washing¬ 
ton, D. C.; Mrs. S. E. Hibbert, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. Eva Collier, 


2 



10 


Montana. Miss Voltairin de Cleyre, Pennsylvania, was also named 
but the work of the committee was completed before her arrival. 

ON OBJECTS. 

Mrs. Zena Kleppish, Washington ; Mrs. Mecca Hoffman, Kansas ; 
Mrs. Melva A. Clayton, New York. 

ON RESOLUTIONS. 

Prof. Elliott Coues, Washington; Mrs. Clara Foltz, California; 
Josephine Cables Aldrich, Alabama; Minnie Baugh, Virginia; Susan 
H. Wixon, Massachusetts; Dr. E. C. Conant, Washington. 

The Committees duly reported at the Executive Session Sunday 
evening. The Plan, Objects and Resolutions were discussed and 
adopted in readiness for presentation to the Convention and the 
Press at the public sessions the following day. Members of the 
Executive Council were elected by a committee of the whole. 

The minutes of the convention were stenographically taken by 
Mrs. J. W. Young. 

PUBLIC SESSIONS. 

The first public session opened Monday, February 24th, 10:45 A - M * 
Mrs. Gage called the convention to order, saying: By virtue of my 
having done most of the work in preparing for this organization, 

I assume the right to hold the office of temporary President, and I 
appoint as temporary Secretary, Mr. William F. Aldrich. Mr. Aldrich 
will please read the “ Call.” 

Mr. Aldrich having read the Call, Mrs. Gage said, I have letters 
from all sections of the United States. I should very much like to 
give you a part at least of each but time will not permit. I can have 
but a few read even of those received since I arrived in Washington, 
and I have a very great number at my own home. Since this move¬ 
ment was inaugurated it has swept like a hurricane over the entire 
country and there is scarcely a State not represented by corres¬ 
pondence expressing sympathy and co-operation. Mr. Aldrich will 
please read letters. The Secretary than read a letter from Parker 
Pillsbury. 

Concord, N. H., Feb. 16th, 1890. 

Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, ^ . 

Dear Friend: —Certainly, “The National Reform Association,” as it 
named itself is to be closely observed and watched. Vigilance here is in¬ 
deed the price of Liberty. The Jesuits in their proudest days were not 
more dangerous. 

In a written lecture of mine delivered several years ago, it was shown 
that among the officers of the Society were a hundred Divines, ninety, 
eight of them, Doctors Divine, fifteen were Doctors of Law, six or seven 


11 


were Judges of the United States Supreme Court or its branches, and 
Judge Story, one of them, was fora number of years President of the 
Association which was formed in 1864. 

President Lincoln once received an Official Delegation at the Presidential 
Mansion who read him a long Address on the Principles and Objects of 
their Organization. At the close of the reading the President said he 
“ heartily approved of their general object and design.” 

General Grant and President Garfield were always claimed as favorable 
to the design ; and surely as to the present occupant of the presidential 
chair, and a portion of his cabinet, there is hardly room for doubt of them, 
though they may not yet have directly declared themselves. 

And the rank and file of this powerful Legion as well as their chieftains 
are in deadly earnest. Religiously, conscientiously in earnest in what 
they do. And therein is the greatest danger. They believe in work and 
are not afraid to work. They believe in the Bayonet as well as the Bible. 
And they are as ready to die as to kill to achieve their terrible purpose. 
Their clergy chaplained the batallions in the Mexican War to re-instate 
slavery and perpetuate it in Texas and then annex it to the United States, 
thus robbing Mexico of a whole empire of territory, a daring, desperate 
robbery in which the whole nation, north and south, participated alike. 

And this is the church, these the clergy that would vaccinate the United 
States Constitution with their Theology, by incorporating the names of 
their triune God, Christ and Bible into its preamble. A subversion of the 
Constitution which literally, logically and theologically would disfranchise 
every man and woman too, who was not of the pure evangelical religious 
faith. 

And now they are paying court to the Women’s Christian Temperance 
Union, in hope at first, but now in confident expectation of making with 
them a most wicked and adulterous alliance. Two years ago, they had 
captured their President, Miss Frances E. Willard, and six of her State 
Auxiliaries. And in her official organ, the Union Signal of twenty-first of 
November last it is shown that the whole Woman’s Christian Temperance 
Union has virtually committed itself to the fearful doctrine and demand 
of this God-in-the Constitution Society—the most desperate conspiracy 
against civil as well as religious freedom ever witnessed in the nineteen 
Christian centuries. 

And now Miss Willard is leading forth her most valiant forces in a con¬ 
quest for the whole woman suffrage enterprise of the country, and the 
God-in-the-Constitution Society is cheering her on, and congratulating and 
thanking her for her already achievements. Many ministers have become 
woman suffragists in the hope of aiding her in her strange work. So did 
large numbers of ministers espouse the anti-slavery cause for similar pur¬ 
pose. They thought they saw opportunity to enlarge and strengthen their 
own sectarian lines. But the wondrous disclosures in the anti-slavery 
ranks of the years 1839 and 1840 unmasked them to their confusion and 
flight. They made a sorry attempt at a new organization, but it soon dis¬ 
appeared to be seen no more. Let the Woman Suffragists and Temper¬ 
ance Reformers beware of all entangling alliances with any of the great 
ecclesiastical establishments of the times. They have their own distinctive 
designs. They are glad of any co-operation that can be turned to their 



12 


own account. They laid their unclean hands on Garrison and anti-slavery. 
They soon found that his work was not theirs. 

Now Miss Willard is in their toils. Let her beware ! Let her noble dis- 
cipleship beware! Let the woman suffragists be warned ! One well 
studied leaf of anti-slavery history, well learned, well heeded can now save 
them all. But disregarded, of which the prospect is now portentous, we 
may well beware of the consequences. 

Pardon so much, dear Mrs. Gage, to so little purpose, if you can, and 
still believe me, now and ever, 

Yours for every good thought, word and work, 

Parker Pillsbury. 

Odin, III., February 15th, 1890. 

Mrs. M. J. Gage : 

Dear Madam —“The Liberal Thinker” with the enclosed “ Statement of 
Facts ” received and read with interest. I am earnestly in favor of the 
most free and liberal thought on all subjects—religious, social, political, 
scientific and philosophic by women as well as men. 

Why should women more than men allow themselves to be bound and 
tramelled by customs and ideas of thousands of years ago? The world 
moves and women must move with it whether they will or not. Is it pos¬ 
sible any one can think that simply putting the name of Deity in the Con¬ 
stitution will improve matters ? We hire a Chaplain to pray for Congress 
every morning but does that purify legislation? Nothing less than a just 
government can be God’s government no matter how many times this 
name appears in the Constitution. The whole civilized world seems to be 
in a ferment to-day and I hope this ferment will never Cease till men and 
women get clearer views of their rights and duties? Whatever I can do 
to aid in the good work I will gladly do. 

Yours very truly, 

Mrs. Adeline M. Swain. 

Ciiillicothe, Ohio, Feb. 15th, 1890. 

Dear Mrs. Gage : 

Through the kindness of a very dear friend I received “ The Liberal 
Thinker ,” which contained your call for a “Woman’s Liberal Convention.” 
That is my text precisely—I have long been ’listed under that banner, 
Liberty. Although I am very obscure, whose influence may not count 
much, still I am heart and soul in this new organization, and hope for its 
success ; and if I only had the right kind of a pocket book, I would throw 
that in—and meet you all there. Yes, it is high time the women of this 
country were awakened to see the appalling monster that stands before 
them, the Church Godology and W. C. T. U. 

The only objection I could ever see to Woman’s Suffrage, was the fear 
of the Priest and Church influence, that might be brought to bear through 
their vote, as they constitute so large a per cent in the Church Society. I 
have often told those who have desired me to join Church, that I could not 
do it and be honest. It does my heart and eyes good to see the long list of 
names in your paper, of heroic women who fear not to step out on liberty’s 
platform and declare their intentions to stand by truth and reason. 

I would like to put my shoulder to the wheel and help roll it along, but 


13 


three very needful instruments, of which I am not possessed, will prevent; 
time, money and ability. But I have one consoling thought, I have raised 
five splendid boys, whose influence may be felt some day—they are all 
free from church, tobacco and whiskey—and they are all striving to be 
men. 

We have a small but thriving Equal Right’s Association here of which I 
am Secretary. With many ardent wishes that all your noble efforts for 
uplifting humanity may be crowned with success, I am with you. 

Mrs. Mary A. Sears. 

Mrs. Gage said, we have a letter from Anna Bishop Schofield, 
President of the Equality Club of Jamestown, N. Y., a large body, 
comprising both women and men. There is a great deal of woman 
suffrage sentiment in the western part of the State of New York. 
The Secretary read this followed by one from Liberty, Missouri, 
speaking of an association of a hundred members ready to unite 
with the new organization. 

The Bungalow. 

Fluvanna-on-Chautauqua, N. Y., Feb. 19, 1890. 

My Dear Mrs. Gage : 

Some one had the kindness to send me a copy of “ The Liberal Thinker ,” 
and in response to the reference to you, I wish to ask you, What next ? 
What can I do ? Such earnestness and consecration, and interest as I have 
is given to the cause of “Liberty.” The indifference of those who should 
be most alert in this cause has filled me with despair. This movement 
gives me something to hope for. I long to be at the convention in Wash¬ 
ington next week, but do not see how I can be. My intense feeling con¬ 
cerning these matters, prevents any adequate expression. 

Will you kindly let me know what I can do and what is done in this 
matter? I was one of the original members of “ Sorosis” with Charlotte 
Wilbour, and know you well, but do not expect you to recall my person¬ 
ality. Louise Thomas is one of the delegates to the convention next week. 
She is my dear friend. Most truly yours, 

Anna Bishop Schofield. 

Liberal, Mo., Feb. 21, 1890. 

Matilda Joslyn Gage : 

Feeling a .deep interest in your Woman’s Suffrage Reform movement, 
on behalf of myself and the ladies here I would say that being in sympathy 
with you we would like to become in some way connected with the Na¬ 
tional organization. We think we could have one hundred members all 
good workers and intelligent ladies, any one of whom would do honor to 
an organization of that kind. We are already united in a Woman’s Aid 
or Progressive Society and are doing all we can to maintain and advance 
every inherent right belonging to woman, but feel that our scope of use¬ 
fulness would be enlarged could we be in communication with the Na¬ 
tional Organization. We believe that in union there is strength, and that 
we must become a National Strength before there can be any great or 
lasting good achieved. We would therefore kindly ask you to instruct us 



14 


that we may be identified with the movement. If you have a form of per¬ 
manent organization, circulars or papers or any way of communication 
please send us, that we may know how to proceed and they will be kindly 
appreciated by the ladies here. Respectfully, 

Mrs. C. Belk. 

Red Wing, Minn., Feb., 12th, 1890. 

Mrs. Gage : 

Dear Madam —I saw your circular in “ The Truth Seetcer ” and looked 
for it in “ The Woman's Tribune .” I really thought to see it there. Sick¬ 
ness has kept me from writing till the receipt from you, I suppose, ot“The 
Liberal Thinker ,” moves me to make an effort and at least say, how glad 
I am ! May be it is as well for you that I am not able to enlarge as I feel 
disposed to do. I send you a little help and in the future will try to do all 
I can. I had had it in my mind for a long time to write you asking about 
your “Woman, Church and State” referred to by Helen Gardener in 
“ Men, Women and Gods,” but I have my answer in the “ Liberal Thinker ” 

If you have copies of the paper to spare, I could place two or three I 
think, and I wish you would send one to my sister, Julia A. J. Perkins, 
Bald wins ville, N. Y. With good wishes for the success of your convention, 

Your friend, Adele J. Grow. 

Santa Cruz, Cal., Feb. 9th, 1890. 

Dear Mrs. Gage : 

Your paper, “ The Liberal Thinker ,” reached me yesterday. It has the 
right ring, like the old bell at Philadelphia, for freedom, but the wrong 
sound for people who believe like the Pope, Archbishops and Priests of 
papacy, that “the church is above all governments.” The orthodox 
church claims that all progress is due the church’s civilizing influence—the 
most positive of its teaching being the guillotine, the scaffold and the 
stake. The facts are that we have abnormal development, which is not 
true civilization. The church has prevailed by force and does not that 
show that it is not natural development ? It has now reached another 
point in its history that needs force, and so it intends to use what power 
it dares since thumb-screws and the stocks are not civilized methods. You 
will be sustained, I think, I hope so, because this is the “ last ditch ” of the 
army of demonology. 

Please send copies of “ The Liberal Thinker ” to the names mentioned. 
With best wishes for a prolonged life, with peace and plenty, I am yours, 

Mrs. S. E. Smith. 

Vineland, N. J., Feb. 14th, 1890. 

Mrs. M. J. Gage : 

Please accept our heartfelt thanks for the timely move you are making 
in behalf of women, freedom and equality. Truly we are living in a won¬ 
derful age, being taught many valuable lessons. Once started, depend 
upon it, the cause for which you battle will gather strength. Thousands 
are waiting for a nucleus to be formed around which they can gather to 
work out the Free Thought problem. Do you wonder they are weak and 
half paralyzed, cramped and stifled as woman is with no opportunity for 


15 


expressing herself politically or religiously except through and by the 
other sex. Thank goodness there is occasionally one like Helen H. Gar¬ 
dener where the ring of the true metal is heard ! No shoddy there ! 

It seems to me the greatest want at the present time is a Liberal W. S. 
U. No ! Inform our good mother Stanton we can not work within the 
contracted shell controlled by the W. C. T. U. With high appreciation for 
good intended and a proper recognition of what has been accomplished, 
we have come to the conclusion a more strengthening diet is needed than 
the frothy mixture of Church and State. We need an organization and a 
liberal paper to represent this the second impending crisis, and there are 
plenty of bright thinkers in the field capable of engineering such an enter- 
prize. I read with much interest the letters and names attached to your 
“ call from the different States,” and regret exceedingly that N. J. could 
not have been more fully represented. Your Jersey sisters may seem 
stupid but I can assure you they are not dead. 

We have a small but wide awake society here in Vineland, every one of 
them as far as I know, heart and soul in sympathy with this effort of 
yours. Isn’t it amusing the puny attempts pulling the wool over one’s 
eyes. “The poor working people.” How they do “need a day of rest.” 
Certainly ; and they should have it too ! Likewise the poor minister who 
earns his ten thousand dollars salary on this blessed day ; no favoritism at 
our house ! Five hundred dollars fine first infringement of law ; five 
years imprisonment for the second. Surely the servant is not above his 
Master that he may refuse to imitate his example and rest on the seventh 
day. Oh, no ! 1 am not sure but a God in the Constitution may prove a 
good thing. If nothing more, might awaken inquiry as to who and what He 
is. Orthodoxy has settled the question of sex and personality. They have 
a Heavenly Father, but alas, for His motherless children—A King sitting 
on a big white throne, his Queen—nowhere. 

I never so fully realized the need of a word including and recognizing 
both male and female as when listening to the prayer preceding the lecture 
of Rev. Anna Shaw on the Suffrage Question. The utter repudiating of 
ally recognition of the Mother part of Deity. The Father , oh yes ! the 
Father was asked to lend his aid and the Mother’s daughter plead her 
cause splendidly. But unlike the brave Theodore Parker, where is the 
Rev. who can stand up and openly acknowledge the over-ruling Power 
as our Father and our Mother. And why ? Simply because it is not popu¬ 
lar. Not the Christian way of doing. This may be thought too small a 
matter to notice considering the size of the subject. But I do seriously 
assert this constant repetition and supplication to a father God from 
childhood to old age like the constant dropping that wears away a stone 
does wear into the human mind the idea of male supremacy. And now 
may the spirit of wisdom guide and sustain you in the coming struggle 
for justice and truth. I anticipate hearing a glorious account. My whole 
heart and feelings are with you ; never never wanted to be anywhere so 
much as at this convention. Never fear, you cannot fail. The harvest is 
ripe and you are bound to organize the most important work that ever 
blessed this land of liberty. Sincerely yours, 

Mrs. E. J. Robinson, 

Ch. W. S. L. Ex . Com. 




16 


Park, Whatcom Co., Washington, Feb. 1890. 

Dear Mrs. Gage : 

My last public work of any length ended soon after the International 
Counciljand then I came to my home in the wilds of a new territory where 
if possible for a soul to commune with itself it is here. During the long 
time I have been well supplied with the current literature of the day and 
very many of the various articles published whether emanating from the 
clergy or laity, the schoolman or politician, seem to tend in one direction 
and foreshadow the inevitable union of Church and State, with the Church 
dominant very soon after such affiliation. 

Events move with great rapidity and though the spirit of the age seems 
against such union, I see nothing to prevent. There is no one criticizing 
such action, no one powerful enough to weld the thinkers into an organ¬ 
ization of any force, and the two powerful organized bodies and the only 
two that can be called national in scope are the Political parties and the 
Church party. I am not fighting the Church ; as well a humming bird 
try its.puny strength against the eagle’s mighty wings ; but never can I 
see danger to the land I love without a warning cry. 

I looked upon prohibition as an educator by the very forces it would rule 
and the discussion that it would arouse. Its dangerous tendencies in this 
direction did not strike me until the formation of the Temperance Alliance 
in Tennessee after the St. Louis Woman’s Christian Union convention. I 
saw then enough to convince me that men were using the Woman’s 
Christian Temperance Union precisely as did the monkey use the cat's 
paw, to draw the chestnuts from the fire. I know women who dread the 
danger and see it as plainly as I do, but they are afraid to admit it for 
there is no place for them in which to work if they dare say aught against 
the danger ahead, which we are all unwittingly aiding. 

I am willing and glad to admit the work done by the churches, but or¬ 
ganizations doing similar work are all over the land. Then it is done 
mainly by members of churches and to dare criticise the action of churches 
or churchmen sweeps you at once from the ranks of the respectable and 
consigns you to the ranks of the blasphemer who will believe in nothing. 

I came from a line of preachers, but there is also a tradition in our fam¬ 
ily “that one of its ancestors had his ears split” for daring to disagree 
with the Kirk of Scotland, and such power as is now in the church com¬ 
bined, I care not how wise its leaders, means danger to freedom when it 
enters the political arena. 

The next twenty-five years will vindicate your actions, but you are 
stemming a stream with sand. Every one who has heard me speak has 
heard me declare with emphasis that woman will gain her freedom as did 
the negro, by the accident and exigencies of great party measures looking 
to their own interests, and never from a sense of justice to woman. If a 
leading churchman can spend $200,000 to elect a man who secures him a 
place in the cabinet, it is only a question of time when our great public 
schools will pass under church rule and children be educated according to 
the church idea of Christian morality, and an affiliation of all orthodox 
churches will inaugurate an onslaught upon all who do not so agree. 

The great National Reform party, the mass of orthodox churchmen, the 
’Woman’s Christian Temperance Union will all rejoice to see the recogni- 


IT 


tion of Christ as the head of our government. That our people have ever 
recognized a divine providence goes without saying ; it is witnessed in the 
mere fact of taking the oath of office. The dangers ahead of us are so 
many one hardly dare attempt to show them. 

The effort at securing a national divorce law is for the purpose of secur¬ 
ing church power, and is in the highest degree dangerous to women. No 
council meets to discuss this question to which women are ever invited. 
The Episcopal council desired it to be placed in the State under church 
regulations. 

The Catholic laity are beginning to see where their best work is to be 
done and the policy indicated of relations between Catholic and Protestant 
forces on all that they term moralities. Catholics are also beginning to 
see the need of woman’s ballot to uphold the church, and wise in their day 
and generation, the Protestant sees the same. Wealth rules the church as 
it rules the nation and our most liberal women are so sanguine from the 
advance made by women in all directions and the help given them by 
churches that they are beguiled into a dangerous security. 

Your call and meeting may open the way for action and tend to draw 
attention towards the cloud that is far larger than a man’s hand. I can 
only add, 

“ wnerever you march, or tar or wide 
I walk in armour at your side.” 

Elizabeth Lyle Saxon. 

Halstead^Kansas, Feb. 19,1890. 

Dear Mrs. Gage : 

Please accept my best wishes and hearty greetings to yourself and all 
true defenders of liberty assembled to inaugurate a broader more all¬ 
searching woman’s movement than has hitherto existed. I hope the new¬ 
born platform will be so broad that the most ultra radicals as well as con¬ 
servative liberals can stand upon it, and all do active service in spreading 
the new Gospel that is to emancipate woman from religious, social and 
industrial bondage, and lift humanity to a higher plane. I hope its main 
plank will be “ the free and open discussion and agitation of and investi¬ 
gation into the cause of woman’s dependence and inferiority.” May the 
new movement help to usher in the new dispensation of justice, under 
which inequality, suffering, crime and poverty will have no place. Let 
the promulgation of that higher education, that will lift humanity to a 
nobler sense of right than is the present idea of morality sustained by 
force, be considered of more importance than the ballot. 

The ballot has become a weapon in the hands of politicians which they 
skilfully use in tightening the chains of oppression and tyranny already 
fastened on their duped followers. Seeing the utter helplessness, servility 
and destitution of the masses of men holding this scepter of sovereignty, 
meeting everywhere with mental and moral abortions of stunted, dwarfed 
and deformed manhood, it is not surprising that many men and women 
of to-day—men and women of unquestioned ability and devotion to truth— 
have lost faith in the ballot as a cure for human wrongs, and hope for no 
alleviation of the people’s sufferings from Either State or Church. 

I hope that energy, ability and an earnest desire to eradicate the many 
wrongs which make women, children and men suffer and die will be the 


3 


18 


proper “ Credentials to present at the coming convention. Possessing 
these they will be valuable soldiers in the “new crusade.” They can 
preach the “Gospel of Discontent,” if nothing more, and arouse the sleep¬ 
ing masses from the lethargy that is stupifying them into passive, endur¬ 
ance of oppression and robbery of their liberties. “Keep the soul alert 
with noble discontent ” if not a divine command, is a good and useful 
motto. Yours sincerely for the widest liberty for all mankind. 

Lillie D. White. 

Cairo, III., 518 Centre St. 

To the Convention of Liberal Minded Women: 

Greeting— The present seems a most fitting time for freedom’s friends 
to meet. For all women of this Republic, who do their own thinking, who 
are true to themselves and loyal to their country, to organize their forces. 
To overcome their inertia and say one word at least for mental liberty. 
To ignore for the time being their own personal grievances and class dis¬ 
abilities in seeking the general good of mankind. To hang out danger 
signals before the surging crowd that would blindly hasten this fair 
country to ruin. To denounce as most dangerous the encroachments of 
the Christian parties in politics. Those who while avowedly working for 
various needed reforms, join in the one especial object of uniting Church 
and State. Thereby uprooting the principles established by our fore¬ 
fathers wherein is declared that “Congress shall make no law respecting 
religion or preventing the free exercise thereof.” 

Though I cannot meet with you to-day I write to assure you of my sym¬ 
pathy for morality truth and justice. I wish to record myself as a friend 
of the Republic which favors free speech, free press and religious tolera¬ 
tion. As one who appreciates the blessings of mental freedom and re¬ 
members with gratitude the foresight and courage of those who bestowed 
it upon us. 

I believe that ours is the best government in the world, its worst featuie 
being the disfranchisement of women ; of one-half of its citizens. And I 
believe also that so long as our sex are foremost in the battle for the in¬ 
troduction of orthodoxy in the government, so long will we be hindrances 
to our own welfare. But, hoping that religious despotism may never be 
in power, I am, very truly yours, 

Amarala Martin. 

Philadelphia, Pa., 1123 Arch St. 

To the Woman's Liberal Convention: 

Yours is one of the grandest movements for truth and justice ever in¬ 
augurated on this planet. All reforms are begun by bold pioneers outside 
of the church. So called Christians persecute these faithful workers and 
then capture a reform as soon as it becomes popular. This fact was 
plainly proven at the reunion of the old Abolitionists in Chicago ; and 
when there, I remarked in my address that slavery was not yet abolished, 
for women were slaves, several priests cried out, “ That is a falsehood ! ” 

Let us ever be willing to give credit to all the good that Christians do, 
but bravely bear our testimony against that upon which the church is 


19 


founded, viz :—The ownership of woman. Onward, then, oh ye Liberals ! 
speak in tones of freedom’s divine inspiration until the echoes ring around 
the world ! Yours for all truth, Sada Bailey Fowler. 

FROM SARAH GILMAN YOUNG, AUTHOR OF “EUROPEAN MODES OF LIVING,” &C. 

Hartford, Connecticut. 

To the Liberal Woman's Convention: 

That we have reached, in the great struggle for equal rights, a point 
where we seem to rest upon our oars, must strike those who are interested 
in this greatest of reforms, that of the freedom and civil rights of women. 

I have long been in favor of more decided action, and it seems to me, we 
are now strong enough to try our case in the law courts. I am in favor of 
twenty or thirty tax-paying women, residing in the same city, boldly re¬ 
fusing to pay their taxes. It would be of no use for one or two to do this, 
as they would simply be regarded in the light of delinquent taxpayers, and 
all theiaction that would be taken would be that ten per cent, would be added 
to their taxes for the following year. But if twenty or more women, 
belonging to the monied classes, take this step, their property would be 
levied upon. The services of a good lawyer would then be necessary, and 
the courts compelled to take action. If the local courts decided against 
the rights of women taxpayers, the case should be carried to the supreme 
court. The courts would be compelled to decide whether women are per¬ 
sons or things. Something analagous to this was tried in Connecticut, 
when a certain learned young lady, now an ornament to the legal profes¬ 
sion, was admitted to the bar. If I understood rightly, the supreme court 
was compelled to declare that she came under the denomination of a per¬ 
son, and therefore could not be denied admittance to the bar. Judge 
Hooper of Connecticut, always foremost in good works, was the attorney. 
This step should be taken in some city where the suffrage club numbers 
wealthy and influential members, and some among the so-called fashion¬ 
able classes. I presume this is the case in Boston, New York and Detroit. 
The suffrage club in Detroit is reported to number about 300 members, and 
to be in a good financial condition. Detroit is the home of one of the 
noblest champions of our rights, I mean the Hon. Thomas Palmer, senator 
from Michigan, who might give moral support to this crusade for feminine 
rights. 

Do you realize, ladies, what men do for posthumous fame ? To go down 
on the roll of honor to posterity, men risk their lives and their fortunes. 
Are there no women who aspire to such distinction, who will affix their 
names to this later and not less honorable declaration of independence ? 
It might go down in history as the American Woman’s Boston tea party. 
If the courts declare women are not persons, but things , chattels of men, 
that would also benefit the cause in the storm of indignation it would 
raise. Yours fraternally, Sarah Gilman Young. 

Member of the Equal Rights Club. 

Washington, D. C., Feb. 23d, 1890. 

Miss Susan H. Wixon : 

Dear Madam—l am most heartily in sympathy with any movement 
that will tend to elevate our common humanity, and certainly there is no 



20 




influence more potent for good than the example of pure women. We 
may differ in opinion and belief, but my religion is founded upon the 
golden rule, and I would concede to others what I most strenuously claim 
for myself, the inalienable rights of man, liberty of conscience. It is a 
strange spectacle in this age of enlightenment and religious tolerance, and 
especially in this nation, supposed to be so absolutely free, to find a party 
which so bitterly denounces Romanism and yet would out-Herod the 
Jesuit in plotting and treason to accomplish the self-same ends—religious 
legislation and political power. This party would lay ruthless hands upon 
the constitution and enforce by national law the observances of religious 
rites, would subvert the principles of our institutions, and, in the chains 
of bigotry and religious intolerance entrap and rob our nation of its right 
of unfettered conscience. Such systems have been roots of the most cruel 
suffering and persecution the world has ever known. This party has 
clothed itself in the beautiful garments of charity, temperance, morality, 
and is flaunting the banners of virtue, and using the sweet lispings of our 
children to advance its march towards triumph. It proposes to remodel 
the principles of our country and assumes the high sounding title of 
National Reform ; it has purloined from the people their assent by peti¬ 
tion, bearing millions of names procured ostensibly in the interest of 
temperance and morality. I have yet to find among the thousands I have 
consulted, one intelligent citizen willing to sacrifice the first amendment 
to the National Constitution, “ Congress shall make no laws respecting an 
establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” though 
hundreds had signed the petitions referred to. Their measures are subtle 
and hidden in their meaning ; they are little understood by the people, and 
in their borrowed plumage would change our government into a religious 
machine, forsooth, a Christian nation, and the first blow is at our free 
public schools. 

“ Congress shall establish a system of free public schools adequate to the 
instruction of all the children from six to sixteen years of age inclusive, in 
virtue, morality and in the principles of the Christian religion.” Methinks 
this an echo from the horrid past, the buried centuries, the history of the 
Waldenses:—“shall establish a system of free public schools, adequate to 
the instruction of all the children from six to sixteen years of age inclu¬ 
sive in the principles of virtue, morality and the Christian religion ! ! ” 

Let us oppose religious legislation and hold to the constitution, which 
has been sufficient for more than a hundred years, it is the pure metal 
whose clear ring has sounded the note of freedom to the oppressed of the 
whole world. It is the heritage of a noble ancestry who were good and 
tried men fresh from,the fires of religious persecution. Let it remain. 

Yours respectfully, 

Daniel McSmythe. 

FROM MARY A. WHITE, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE FIRST NATION¬ 
ALIST CLUB OF SAN DIEGO. 

San Diego, Cal., February 18, 1890. 

Matilda Joslyn Gage : 

Dear madam, friend and sister .—I have no language to tell you how 
sorry I am that circumstances over which I have no control have pre- 


21 


vented me from being with you in your grand rally at Washington. I 
have taken pains to give the announcement of your convention as much 
publicity as possible. No matter who is there and who is not, how much 
is done and how much is left undone, the moral effect of the convention 
will be for good. It has already gone out to the world that the liberal 
women are arousing themselves and shaking off their lethargy, and when 
the lion that is in woman shakes her mane there is going to be something 
done. 

I feel like a caged lion, robbed of her one young lion, in having to stay 
at home while this glorious work is going on. But it will not be always 
thus. I am not idle* and never intend to be again. I will be heard from 
on this platform of principles as certain as I live. But you may congrat¬ 
ulate yourself on having our western star, Clara Foltz, as one of your 
members. She is new on religious freedom, but once aroused, she will be 
a power. 

With a heart overflowing for you and all the grand women present, 
accept my sincere regrets and hopes for the success of your enterprise. 

Yours for humanity, Mary A. White. 

Stenographers’ Graduating College, 

No. 52 University Place. 

New York, February 24, 1890. 

My Dear Mrs. Oage and other Members of the Woman's Liberal Thought 
Convention: 

As a believer in liberty and equal rights for the whole human family to 
become all that it is in the possibility of things in the direction of the 
beautiful, true and good, I gladly take part by letter in the Liberal 
Woman’s Convention. I am sorry that I cannot be with you in person. 
Professional duties absorb so much of my time I cannot even write as I 
would like, but this much I must find time to say : That I am in sympathy 
with the movement you and Mrs. Josephine Cables Aldrich and the other 
members of your committee are inaugurating. I may not think exactly 
as you all do in everything. I may, in many respects, differ in my views 
from all those who will take part in the exercises of your two day’s con¬ 
vention ; but if I agree with you all in the fundamentals, that is sufficient. 
Fundamentals agreed upon, individual varieties of thought and views are 
needful modes to bring out truth from all sides. It has been said that 
truth is like a prism in being many sided, and that the people representing 
the different sides should thoroughly respect each others’ honest convic¬ 
tions and endeavors, for that the time will come, sooner or later, when 
each will see his relation to the other and discover that all were, in a sense, 
right; that the mistake each had made was in supposing that he or she 
only, had the truth, and the whole truth; whereas the fact would be that 
each had only one of the sides of truth. With broad-mindedness, charity 
and patience, in the wisdom of kindly feeling, harmony and peace, we 
shall each work out the problems given us, while working together. 
Without perfect freedom to express one’s views openly and fearlessly and 
completely, the great truths that are to redeem the race from its evils can 
never be born to bless the world. 

All my life I have been a teacher in different branches of education, and 



22 


it has been my privilege and pleasure to unfold the intellectual and 
spiritual powers of my pupils. There is no work more delightful, grand 
and satisfactory in results. Not teaching what to think, but how to think 
in order to reach truth. I endeavor to teach the use of their own thinking 
powers and to build in them a never-dying desire to further unfold those 
powers in seeking all truth they are capable of comprehending. To those 
in the valleys and on the foot-hills, who do not yet see nor hear what is 
farther on, I say, do not disbelive what is declared to you by those on the 
highlands and mountains, where in time you will stand. And to those on 
the highlands and mountains, I say, declare not too much and unwisely, 
of things that cannot be understood. 

Strong in the faith that through superior intelligence, a wise and peace¬ 
ful solution will be given to all present and future problems of public 
interest, and that woman—recognized as having equal rights with man— 
will have a voice in their solution, I look for the work of this convention 
to result in organizing with large membership a Woman’s National Liberal 
Thought Association, and subscribe myself ever with you in the work of 
human upliftment. Alvesea C. Scott-Brown. 

FROM MRS. MATTIE P. KREKLE OF MISSOURI. 

Seattle, Wash., February 20, 1890. 

Dear Mrs. Gage : 

Just back from down the Sound and found your letter awaiting me too 
late to reach you in Washington. I feel sure you are doing the right thing 
and in the right way, and will do all I can to help secure the ends aimed 
at in such organization. I don’t believe much in what you call “ inherent 
rights ” any more than I believe in what our hard money men call “ in¬ 
trinsic value.” A right “ inheres ” if there is power enough to secure it 
and vigilance enough to perpetuate it, not otherwise. Natural rights are a 
phantasm ; natural man is a savage. Acquired rights are the product of 
the civilized process applied to natural man, and the race a portion of it, 
are not yet civilized sufficiently to see that what ennobles the most excel¬ 
lent, is also the only help for what is less excellent. The question with 
me has been for years—I never put it any other way—ought not woman 
to be enfranchised, but why under our form of government is she not ? 
* * I wish it had been possible for me to have participated with you in 
the formative meeting, but for this far-away country, February is a poor 
month to travel in. * * Judge Krekle was a most enthusiastic suffrag¬ 
ist as well as advanced thinker on all questions. Write me if you have 
time, impressions of the convention, and believe me 

Faithfully yours, 

Mattie P. Krekle. 

I decided after all to send this to Washington, it may catch you still in 
the city. 


Albany, Green Co., Wis., Feb. 13,1890. 

Mrs. Gage : 

My dear friend —For such I count all true friends of woman,—were my 
health sufficient nothing would give me greater pleasure than to meet 


23 


with the brave women who are to assemble at our national capital to 
protest against the galling tyranny of a man-invented religion. For 
years I have denounced it as a greater burden to carry, a greater obstacle 
in the way of woman’s enfranchisement than her legal disabilities. Truly 
there is no slavery so degrading or hopeless as soul slavery. Of course I 
cannot get a hearing in the papers devoted to equal suffrage. Only a few 
weeks ago H. B. Blackwell endeavored to prove in an article published in 
the Woman's Journal, that the Bible (that book that has done more than 
all other books towards crushing womankind) was the advocate of equal 
rights for woman ; and the Woman’s Tribune refused to publish a short 
article showing forth the misery caused by the workings of the infamous 
Sunday law in Arkansas, where the pious minions of orthodoxy undertook 
to “ protect and defend the Sabbath,’ a la Willard & Co. Yet Mrs. Stan¬ 
ton speaks of that “ harmless Sabbath plank ” referring to the constitution 
of the Prohibitionists. When I see women moving heaven and earth to 
build churches and support ministers for the poor privilege of hearing 
from the lips of some third or fourth rate dude in clerical garb, their duties 
and sphere defined, from the pulpit built and carpeted by their efforts, I 
blush for my sex. I enclose stamps for two or three copies of the Liberal 
Thinker, as I wish to send them to friends. Had I the means I would 
gladly send for 1,000 of them for distribution. Am rejoiced to see the 
grand letter of my old and honored friend, Parker Pillsbury. His words 
bore the old ring that I remember in ante-bellum days. 

Truly your friend, 

O. L. Morgan. 

Mrs. Gage said, I wish to acknowledge the receipt of a letter 
from a lady physician of Philadelphia, containing an enclosure of 
$5 towards the Union, and informing me of an organization of 130 
members, of which she is Financial Secretary, who indorse us and 
are anxious to join our Union. I desire you all to know that sup¬ 
porters are coming in not singly but by scores and hundreds.” 


Philadelphia, Pa., February 20, 1890. 

Dear Liberal Thinker : 

I am with you in this new undertaking towards forming a free Liberal 
Woman’s Association. I am very glad that woman has come to the rescue 
in this matter. There is a strong growing sentiment in the Woman’s 
Christian Temperance Union to place God in the constitution and allow 
no one to hold office in the national government or in any capacity in the 
State until a believer in their especially made or manufactured God. And 
most of the members of the Woman Suffrage Association belong to the 
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Also, therefore, all liberal minds, 
both men and women, that have never taken much interest in woman 
suffrage on that account will aid in this new organization. You can count 
on a deeper and more manifest interest than ever fell to the experience of 
the suffragist cause. The Woman’s Progressive Union, composed exclu¬ 
sively of women, numbering 130 members who are all liberalists, having 
for their object the higher development of their sex in spiritual, literary 



24 


and ethical culture, will all, I believe, join the ranks of the Liberal Wom¬ 
an Suffrage Association. I have the honor of being their Financial Secre¬ 
tary and think this new movement will suit our members I had hoped 
to be with you in Washington to give my voice for the good cause, but 
sickness prevented and I can only write to express my great pleasure in 
knowing that you are at work in the right direction for success. Thousands 
of men and women of the liberal class will be with you that never would 
have taken part in the old association. My best wishes and my best efforts 
for your prosperity. I here send you five dollars, add my name to the roll 
and send me two dozen of the Liberal Thinker for distribution to those 
that will be interested. As ever your co-worker. 

Lavinia J. Palmer, M. D. 

Portland, Me., Feb. 20th, 1890. 

My Dear Mrs. Gage : 

I cannot be with the convention for equal rights, but send you my 
thought on this momentous question of life or death to our noble Republic 
I have worked in all reforms, church and state, man, woman, all humanity. 
Sumptuary legislation is death to individual growth or action. I believed 
thoroughly in the “ Maine Law ” for many j T ears; have been a prohi¬ 
bitionist, but when I saw Miss Willard and Senator Blair and their fol¬ 
lowers working shoulder to shoulder for a “ Sunday Rest ” law as they 
call it, with Cardinal Gibbons and the Roman Priesthood ; and also with 
the Romanists for a change in the constitution, making a real union of 
church and state, I begun to carefully reconsider my position on the 
prohibition question, and I found I had been in the wrong crowd, that the 
prohibition principle is identical with the Sunday observance and the 
religious state, or God-in-the-constitution principle. If you may regulate 
a person’s private conduct in one respect, you may in all respects until 
you take his or her freedom entirely away from them. The drift of church 
effort is now towards religious coercion by law to compel all to support 
the church and to give the clergy a monopoly at least one-seventh of the 
time and to stop all other business on the day they propose to monopolize. 
If you can establish the old Puritan Sunday, you can restore the blue laws 
which we had, as it was supposed outgrown. The church saw its chance 
and went over in a body to the W. C. T. U. The union of church and 
state party, led by Senator Blair of New Hampshire has united with Miss 
Willard, making a powerful party, to strike down Republican institutions. 
The Romanists see in this movement their chance to establish papal tem¬ 
poral power and are ready to help Blair and Willard put the knife to the 
throat of Protestantism, as they do when they invoke the sword in the 
hands of the civil power in behalf of church interests. The central idea 
of protestanism is left out, which is, right of individual private judgment 
and conscience. The entire protestant principle is surrendered and lost, and 
the United States becomes Roman Catholic in principle, and it will not be 
long before it will be so in practice. Miss Willard is a grand woman, of 
great heart, but in my opinion does not see the evil of taking away 
individual freedom and putting this great nation into another war of 
greater horror and destruction to this republic, and taking us back to a mon¬ 
archy. She finds the potentates of the church, Protestant and Catholic at 


25 


her feet. She finds herself the head and the leader of admiring millions 
of men and women who have been “ redeemed by the blood of Christ,” 
and imagines herself his favorite worker for the redemption and salvation 
of the world. She is drunk with the visions of good she is to be the in¬ 
strument of doing ; her motives are good, but they are not of the head,— 
the motives of Torquemada: He was honest and believed he was working 
for God,—he proposed to force his religion and his god on an unbelieving 
and wicked, and unregenerate world. So Miss Willard proposes. She 
is going to compel men and women to be sober by prohibition amend¬ 
ments to the State constitutions to be enforced by the army and navy. 
Then she is going to make all acknowledge her god, when she has com¬ 
pelled them to quit the use of rum. Her god she supposes to be a Metho¬ 
dist, but in fact he is a Roman Catholic, and his present name is Leo XIII. 
Miss W. is an enthusiast, switched off the track. Her heart inundates 
her head, to drown instead of fertilize, though the tides of her religious 
enthusiasm are now made to turn the wheels of ambition and her humil¬ 
ity would clutch the hilt of a sword. Her saints must wear blue coats and 
epaulets and carry guns and sabers instead of white robes and Methodist 
hymn-books. Instead of the law of the Lord, she wants the law of the 
land as guide and governor in the realm of religion. She is the type of 
Cromwell ; her army is an army of Roundheads. She cannot wait for 
human beings to become good by growth ; she proposes to make them 
good by an act of Congress and a decree of the State ; she proposes to shoot 
religion into them, to shoot abstinence and reverence for God and rest-on- 
Sunday. Powder instead of the Holy Spirit makes quicker work in spreading 
the gospel of the Prince of Peace. The modest Methodist girl, inspired by 
“,her voices” has become a Joan of Arc, with a “consecrated banner” and an 
armor net of steel of conscientious conviction, “The armor of Christ.” Her 
picture should hereafter be taken standing, crushing the U. S. flag—in 
the mind—in one hand the Methodist discipline, in the other the banner of 
the cross, in the distance the “Army of the Lord, the W. C. T. U., in a 
heavy venturous battle with the almost defeated battalions of republican 
statesman, and patriots led by the shades of Washington, Jefferson and 
Lincoln. 

Miss Willard is one of the ablest and best, and yet the most dangerous 
woman in America. Like Joan of Arc, she is inspired by “ voices from 
on high,” and she will almost reach success ; she will not quite succeed, 
but she will not at last be burned ; the struggle will be fearful ; it will be 
the dying struggle of ecclesiasticism for political power in this country, 
the last kick of Rome. How important it is that the National Woman 
Suffrage Association should see what the Woman’s Christian Temperance 
Union movement signifies. Charlotte J . Thomas. 

After the reading of letters, Mrs. Gage said we have a number of 
poems, the Secretary will please read one. 

Mr. Aldrich. —This poem is entitled “God in the Constitution,” 
and is by Mrs. Adelaide Comstock of Ventura, California. 


4 


26 


GOD-IN-THE-CONSTITUTION. 

God in our Constitution ? Yes, that of all things we want, 

But we want it done sincerely, not merely in formal cant; 

Not God in the Constitution, to govern somebody el'se, 

But a practical God in humanity, inserted by each for himself. 

Religion in politics, too? Yes, against that we have nothing to say. 

Providing that when you go at it you do the thing in the right way. 

It is not in seeming but being that betters a man or a State, 

So give up this scheme you’re devising or you may repent when too late ; 

For freemen will rise by the legion to stand for their national right. 

And soon to the mythical region they’ll hurl in precipitate flight 

The creeds of fanatical bigots, who the souls of mankind would enslave ; 

For they’re sworn; yea, by all that is sacred, that freedom shall not find a grave. 
And now for the right way to do it, for surely you’re wrong in the start; 

You’d adorn the outside of the temple, forgetting the innermost part. 

God works through the thoughts and the actions; ’tis thus that His power controls; 
And Christ as the ruler of nations, must work through humanity’s soul. 

But ye, in your vain outward serving, must show up the god of your creed, 

When it is in your own Constitution more God and more Christ, too, ye need. 

“ Jesus Christ as the Ruler of Nations” must be on your banner unfurled. 
Though he tells you, too plain for mistaking, “My kingdom is not of this world.” 
We are not averse to religion in politics taking a part, 

But we want it that kind of religion that works on humanity’s heart— 

A religion that lays the foundation of principles noble and true, 

Our bulwark against foul corruption and guardian of liberty, too— 

A religion that no creed can fetter, that seeks all mankind to embrace ; 

That metes out the measure of justice, regardless of sect, sex or race; 

That frowns down all fraud and corruption and turns a deaf ear to their plea, 

Nor winks at the stealing a Jewell,* as one of the things that might be— 

Because that, forsooth, it might strengthen the cause for the honor of God. 

We want not that kind of religion that deals in the thing—“ pious fraud.” 

For believing that God is almighty, and able his cause to defend, 

We’d prefer not to drill by such tactics, for fear of defeat in the end. 

But now, friends, we don’t wish to quarrel, but only to reason the case, 

For we reverence God and religion, but want things put in their right place. 

So we move to amend your amendment to suit the demand of the hour— 

Viz: We, as the sovereign people, and God working through us, the Power. 

Mrs. Gage. —We also have a poem from Grace Grenough of James¬ 
town, N. Y., too lengthy for reproduction, and others that will be 
rendered by their authors during the convention. 


*Placing the name of Governor Jewell on the association’s list of vice-presidents 
without his consent (thus making him appear as an indorser of this infamous move¬ 
ment, which all right-minded persons must condemn as an encroachment on the 
rights of American citizens), a liberty which he rebuked as it deserved in a pub¬ 
lished card, dated, Hartford, January 6, 1872, and addressed to Rev. D. McAllister, 
general secretary of National Association -for Securing a Religious Amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States. Adelaide Comstock. 

Ventura, Cal., February 4 , 1890 . 



27 


Mrs. Gage: —I would like to have my friend Mrs. Josephine Cables 1 
Aldrich of Alabama, whom most of you know, take the chair. 

Mrs. Aldrich. —I think it is best instead of calling upon the dele¬ 
gates that Mrs. Gage should give her speech at once. I presume all 
of you know Mrs. Gage and of the work she has done, but she is here 
and will now speak for herself. [Applause.] 

Mrs. Gage. — Mrs . Chairman and Friends of the Convention: 
Events of importance bearing upon the welfare of our country have 
taken place within the past few years to which I wish to call your 
attention early in our proceedings. You can then more fully under¬ 
stand the principles upon which this convention is based, and the 
necessity for an organization more radical in character, more out¬ 
spoken as to conditions and causes than any now extant. 

THE DANGERS OF THE HOUR. 

For one hundred and fourteen years we have seen our country gradually 
advancing in recognition of broader freedom, fewer restrictions upon per¬ 
sonal liberty, and the peoples of all nations looking towards us as the great 
exemplar of political and religious freedom. But of late a rapidly increas¬ 
ing tendency has been shown towards the destruction of our civil liberties. 
The work has been stealthily carried on for a number of years under names 
and purposes which have prevented a real recognition of the design in 
view. So strong has this movement now become that we are confronted 
by the fact that our form of government is ^undergoing a radical change, 
with a well organized body greedy for power pressing to that end so that 
centralization instead of diffused power has overcome the aim and intent 
of a large body of people, a fact that can be traced to the war of the sixties 
and the condition of the country immediately afterwards. Personal free¬ 
dom is now threatened by two foes, alike in character although differing 
in name, centralization and clericalism, ever the great antagonists to 
liberty. The control of questions which should be entirely left with the 
respective States is being gradually assumed by the United States. It has 
been said that the war proved one thing—our nationality ; it seems likely 
to prove much more—the destruction of local self government, which is 
becoming gradually lost. This general tendency towards centralizing 
power in the nation is a vast help to those persons who wish to incorporate 
certain religious dogmas in the Federal constitution. The constitution is 
superior to all statutory enactments and for this reason the Christian 
party in politics is not content that laws favoring it should be enacted by 
Congress alone, but aim to secure a constitutional amendment of like 
character. Albion Tourgee says our conservatism consists in doing noth¬ 
ing until it is absolutely necessary. Americans never move until the fifty- 
ninth minute of the eleventh hour. The fifty ninth minute is now upon 
us. [Applause ] There is an impending struggle greater in its influence 
upon humanity than the one fought for freedom thirty years since. The 
government is undergoing changes which are signs of danger. The red 
signal is out, if you are color blind and cannot see it the more the pity for 



28 


you. An unreasoning confidence is the chronic state of the people. To 
them it does not seem possible there is danger to their free inheritance. 
They forget that liberty must ever be guarded. They forget the hereditary 
enslavement, the bondage of the human will to the church, and thousands 
bound do not heed this enslavement—to them it seems liberty. In 1889, 
four new States were admitted to the union, not one possessing a repub¬ 
lican form of government as required by the Federal constitution, not one 
recognizing the rights of one half their citizens to self government. The 
defeat of woman suffrage was remarkable because in each of these four 
States a battle was fought in its favor by women. The new state of 
Washington is especially noticeable as three times under territorial laws 
woman had gained and used the ballot. Eighteen hundred and eightv- 
nine will not soon be forgotten by the friends of woman suffrage. Forty- 
one years after the first convention making such demand, four new States 
which at that period were unknown portions of the world, their very 
names yet to be given, if at all on geography or atlas, noted as desert 
lands, but now possessing tens of thousands of inhabitants, have this year 
come into the union denying the first principles upon which this govern¬ 
ment purports to be founded, equality of rights and self government. We 
are told the country is in a dangerous condition with tens of thousands 
uncultured emigrants yearly pouring onto its shores ; we are told our flag 
is hissed by anarchists who have 25,000 drilled men at their command ; we 
are told the experiment of free government in towns and cities is a failure, 
but what danger from ignorant emigrants so great, what peril from anar¬ 
chists so near, what experiment of free government such an utter failure 
as the admission of four new States largely populated by native-born 
American citizens, men and women of eastern birth, the young, the cul¬ 
tured, wide-awake business men and business women, under denial of the 
first principles of freedom ? 

The danger menacing our country does not lie with the foreigners, nor 
the Anarchists, nor in municipal mismanagement Free institutions are 
jeopardized because the country is false to its principles in the case of one- 
half of its citizens. But back of this falsity away down to the depths of 
causes deep in the hidden darkness of men’s minds, must we look for the 
source of this perennial wrong. To a person of thought this is easily found 
^ in early religious training. Men have not yet learned to regard woman 
as a being of equal creation with themselves ; do not yet believe that she 
stands on a par with them in natural rights even to the air she breathes. 
In order to secure victory for woman we must unfetter the minds of men 
from religious bondage. We have petitioned legislatures and congress, 
we have appeared before committees with the best arguments founded on 
justice, we have educated men politically, and yet the victory is not ours 
because the teachings of the church have stood in the way. Now our war¬ 
fare must be upon another plan, now we must free men from that bondage 
of the will which is the most direful form of slavery, now we must show 
the falsity of that reed upon which men lean. In the old anti-slavery 
times men did not hesitate to call the American Church the bulwark of 
American slavery. In like manner to day we shall proclaim the Church— 
American, English, Greek, Protestant, Catholic—to be the bulwark of 
* woman’s slavery. Man trained by the church from infancy that woman 
is secondary and inferior to him, made for him, to be obedient to him, the 


29 


same idea permeating the Jewish and all Christian churches, all social, 
industrial and educational life, all civil and religious institutions, it is no 
subject of astonishment, if one gives a moment’s thought, that woman’s 
political enfranchisement is so long delayed. . 

In the State of Washington where suffrage for woman had in its 
territorial days been so long and so happily tried there were never better 
laid plans to bring about its defeat in the new constitution. Miss Hind¬ 
man, who spoke throughout the territory in its favor, says there were 
three political parties in the field all as parties opposed to woman suffrage, 
even its old friends among men refusing to speak for it lest it should delay 
statehood ; the churches also refusing to take it up or advocate it on the 
specious ground that it was a political question, those ministers solitary 
and few who did favor it doing so not because of justice nor even because 
the basic principles of the nation demanded it, but “that women might 
vote for temperance,” or aid some plan of the church. 

It has not been without bitter resistance by the clergy that woman’s 
property and educational rights have advanced. Woman’s anti-slavery 
work—her temperance work, her demand for personal rights, for political 
equality, for religious freedom and every step of kindred character has 
met with opposition from the church as a body and from the clergy as 
exponents of its views. 

The St. Louis GrZobe Democrat in an editorial of May 5, 1888, said: “There 
is no more striking anomaly in the history of civilization than the fact that 
the churches have profited in the greatest degree by the devotion of 
women, and yet have been among the slowest of organized institutions to 
concede to the sex the rights and advantages which it has managed to 
obtain. Most of the work done for the improvement of woman’s condition 
as a member of society has been accomplished, not without a certain 
measure of Church sympathy, but without distinct and aggressive Church 
support. We refer particularly to the removal of invidious legal restric¬ 
tions, and the development of sentiments of justice and fairness with 
regard to woman’s political interests, and her relation to the philosophy of 
general progress.” 

Many insidious steps by both Catholic and Protestant prove the church 
now, as of old, the enemy of freedom. In 1884 a Plenary Council, pre¬ 
ceded by an encyclical from the Pope laying out its line of work, was 
held in Baltimore. The two points against which the effort of the church 
is now chiefly directed, are marriage and public schools. In its control of 
these two questions it has ever found its chief sources of power. The 
Pope’s encyclical declared that “ civil marriage must be resented by the 
whole Catholic world.” The establishment of parochial schools in every 
parish was also commanded within two years unless excused therefrom by 
the bishop. 

In compliance with papal demand the Plenary Council formulated 
decrees against marriage as a civil act, or as under civil authority; against 
marriage with a Protestant, and against evening marriages. The sacra¬ 
mental character of the rite was solemnly affirmed, the necessity of priestly 
benediction and nuptial mass enforced. But well knowing the immediate 
promulgation of its decrees would rouse public attention to its aim, these 
were held in abeyance until such times as the dignitaries of the church 
deemed best. Not until three years later were the canons upon marriage 
made known on the Pacific Coast, at which time the archbishop of San 
Francisco, the bishops of Monterey, Los Angeles, and Grass Valley, ad- 



30 


dressed a pastoral letter to the Catholics of that region condemning civil 
marriage as a sin and sacrilege, illegal, and a “ horrible concubinage.” 
Marriage with a Protestant was also forbidden, and marriage unblessed by 
a priest it was declared, subjected the parties to excommunication. 

When the territory about my own city of Syracuse was formed into a 
diocese, one of the first acts of its newly appointed bishop was a prohibi¬ 
tion against evening marriages. Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia has 
commanded the observance of these decrees in his diocese enjoining nup¬ 
tial mass, &c. The bishop of Savanah, Ga., some time since issued an order 
prohibiting marriages after nightfall, and thus have these decrees been 
gradually brought to bear over different portions of the country. 

It must be remembered that the Baltimore council was a body composed 
wholly of celibates governed by the chief celibate, the Pope of Rome, and 
that it decided upon a question of which it possessed no practical knowledge. 
It must also be recollected that no woman’s voice was heard in this council 
in regard to a relation in which as wife, she takes an equal, and as mother 
a superior part. The judgment of these celibate men was alone to decide 
upon the form, obligation, validity and permanance of marriage, the 
church threatening penalties for their non-observance. In the decrees 
upon marriage of this council and the preceding encyclical, two points are 
especially to be borne in mind. First, that woman is the chief victim—not 
alone the question decided without her voice but its indissolubility pressing 
most heavily upon her. For it must be remembered that while the church 
asserts marriage to be an indissoluble sacrament, her past history shows 
it to have been in the power of man, of the husband, to secure that release 
from its bonds that has ever been denied to the wife. 

The second point not to be forgotten, is that the power possessed by the 
church during the middle ages was largely due to the control it had 
secured over domestic relations, and that no more severe blow has ever 
been inflicted upon it than the institution of civil marriage. This 
fact is well known to the church and its persistent effort to again 
secure control of this relation is for the purpose of once more acquiring 
the power it has lost in those countries where civil marriage exists. 
Wherever established by the state it has met with determined opposition 
by the church. Historians agree as to the power the church acquired by 
its hold upon marriage. Lecky says that when religious marriages were 
alone recognized they were a potent instrument in securing the 
power of the priesthood who were able to compel men to submit to the 
conditions they imposed in the formation of the most important contract 
in life. 

Draper also declares the secret of much of the influence of the church in 
the middle ages lay in the control she had so skilfully gained over domestic 
life. The authority of the church over marriage has always been espec¬ 
ially prejudicial to woman; it is from teachings of the church, that in the 
family, power over the wife is given to the husband. It is the church and 
not the state, to which the teaching of woman’s inferiority is due : it is 
the church which primally commanded the obedience of woman to man. 
It is the church which stamps with religious authority the political and 
domestic degradation of woman. It is the church which has placed itself 
in opposition to all efforts looking towards her enfranchisement and it has 


31 


done this under professed divine authority, and wherever we find laws of 
the state bearing with greater hardship upon woman than upon man, we 
shall ever find them due to the teachings of the church. 

But while I have first referred to the encyclical of the Pope and the 
action of the plenary council, upon this question of marriage, Catholics 
are scarcely more greedy for power over this relation than are Protestants. 
The church has ever been a barrier to advancing civilization ; when it 
was the strongest at the time spoken of, when it possessed the greatest 
control over marriage, civilization was at the lowest. 

The Protestant pulpit is only less dangerous than the Catholic to the 
liberties of the people in that its organized strength is less. The old med¬ 
iaeval control of the family, under and through marriage is now as fully 
the aim of the Protestant church as of the Catholic. The General Episco¬ 
pal convention has not convened of late years without canvassing the 
question of marriage and divorce. In 1886 a most stringent Canon upon 
this relation was proposed and although it failed of adoption, a similar 
effort was made at the recent triennial convention in New York the fall 
of 1889. 

The Rev. George Z. Gray, dean of the Episcopal Theological School in 
Cambridge, Mass., is author of a book in which he asserts, referring to 
scripture as authority, that marriage is not a contract between equals, 
but an appropriation of the woman by the man, the wife becoming merged 
in him and owing him obedience, the right of divorce lying alone with the 
husband, the wife not an independent being possessing independent rights, 
but a veritable slave of the husband. Not alone the Episcopalians, but 
Congregationalists, Presbyterians and other sects oppose marriage as a 
civil contract declaring it a rite to be solemnized by the church alone, 
and using influence upon legislative bodies to have it legally declared a 
rite pertaining to the church alone. In 1888 a committee from the Pres¬ 
byterian synod of New York, waited upon the legislature of that state for 
the purpose of influencing changes in the celebration of this rite, request¬ 
ing the publication of banns, etc., and a bill to this effect passed both 
houses but fortunately met with a veto from the governor. 

The clergy of Derby, England, have recently decided not to accept a 
marriage fee, in the hope of thus securing control of marriage by the 
church, and expect their example to be followed by their brethren through¬ 
out England. These are dangerous signs of the times as to the effort of 
the church to obtain increased power over the laity. It is also an attack 
of the church upon the state. The courts of this country have decided 
that marriage is a civil contract. As such a clergyman is no more fitted 
to take part in it than he would be to take acknowledgement of a deed, or 
part in the legalization of any other contract. In fact a marriage performed 
by a clergyman of any denomination should be regarded as invalid in the 
light of civil law. 

It is an infringement of individual rights, that either state or church 
should possess absolute control over this important relation,—one that 
enters the inmost life of the individual persons contracting it. The parties 
themselves as chiefly interested, should hold power over its forms. When 
consummated it might be placed upon record for their own safety as is 
done in case of other contracts. 

The Grand Jury of the General Sessions, New York City, 1887, in ad- 




32 


dition to its presentment in regard to court accommodations also advanced 
opinions that marriage should be taken from magistrates and the laws so 
amended as to require all marriages to be performed by a “duly authen¬ 
ticated and licensed minister,” mayor or Judge of court record. 

While still recognizing the right of the higher state officials to perform 
marriages, the dangerous suggestion of the Grand Jury calls to memory a 
canon of the Baltimore council which directed Catholics to use constant 
influence upon legislation in line with church plans. The other import¬ 
ant subject against which the powers of the Catholic church has ever been 
arrayed, and whose touch we are beginning to feel in this country, is that 
of secular schools. As an ecclesiastical body the church is opposed to 
general education and to systems of public instruction in any part of the 
world. In Belgium, in 1879, when the state established communal 
schools under its own control the opposition of the clerical party was 
strenuous and bitter. The sacrament was refused to those whose children 
or grand-children attended public schools; masters of state schools were 
excommunicated and communion refused to the children in attendance. 
The sacrament of extreme unction was also refused to parents whose 
children were in the state communal schools. 

A curious division of penalty upon parents whose children were in these 
schools is notable as showing the opinion of the church as to where her 
chief power in ignorance lies—with women. The parents of girls attend¬ 
ing state schools were excommunicated, but not those of boys. 

The stronghold of the church has ever been the ignorance and degrada- 
tion of women. Its control over woman in the two questions of marriage 
and education have given it keys of power more potent than those of 
Peter. With her uneducated, without civil or political rights, the church 
is sure of its authority ; but once arouse woman to a disbelief in church 
teaching regarding her having brought sin into the world ; once open to 
her all avenues of education, so that her teaching of the young in her 
charge will be of a broader, more scientific character than in the past 
and the doom of the church is sealed. 

Persecution of like character as that of Belgium has taken place in 
Prussia and other countries where'state schools exist. Even here within 
the past twenty-four hours the threat of excommunication by a Catholic 
bishop, against the parents of children not attending parochial schools, has 
appeared in your city papers. Instances of like character have come 
under my own observation in the city of Syracuse. 

In order to maintain its authority over mankind it is necessary that the 
church should control human thought; freedom of the will has ever been 
its most dangerous foe. The theory of the superiority of the church over 
the state, the doctrine that teaching is a function of the church and not of 
the state presents itself in many forms, and during the present session of 
congress, has been the ground of the bitter opposition to efforts for the 
establishment of a common school system for the education of all 
Indian children. It was the church that in the interests of Cath¬ 
olicism by the priesthood opposed the confirmation by congress of General 
Morgan and Dr. Dorchester. But let it not be thought that the Protes¬ 
tant clergy are less desirous of priestly control over education. While 
their efforts have not been as apparent to the general public, they no less 
exist, both in this country and abroad. Frances Lord, an English literary 


33 


woman and reformer, at one time member of the London School Board, 
says of England : “ The Church still clings tenaciously to its authority 
over the teachers of the youth of both sexes. The head-masters of our 
great public schools, like Eton and Rugby, for instance, must be clergy¬ 
men of the Church of England. Unless a candidate for such a post has 
taken orders, he has no chance of being accepted. No woman will be 
made head mistress of a girl’s High School, if she be not a trinitarian.” 

She declares those great universities controlled by the church stand as 
bulwarks against the advance of new ideas, even though they are deeply 
tinctured with infidelity. 

The school established by Harriet Martineau at Cheddar, among an 
ignorant, vicious, neglected population was ultimately broken up by the 
priesthood, although it was accomplishing an inconceivable amount of 
good. The Catholic clergy of France in a similar way destroyed the schools 
of Madam Pepe-Carpentier, who was in reality the originator of the kin- 
dergarden system. When the statute providing for the admission of 
women to Oxford was passed in England a few years since, the Dean of 
Norwich characterized it as “ an attempt to defeat Divine Providence and 
the Holy Scriptures.” It is no less the Protestant than the Catholic clergy 
that show themselves opposed to woman’s education, the church, 
whether Catholic or Protestant, possessing the same contemptuous opinion 
of woman, the same fear of the results to follow her education, the same 
teaching that through her, sin and death were brought into the world. 

In our own country most of the colleges and universities are presided 
over by clergymen; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, all closing their doors 
against the admission of girls. Even Yassar, a university for women 
alone has a clergyman at its head. 

Dr. M’Glynn asserts that the Roman church threatens the republic, 
especially referring to the efforts of its clergy against the common school 
system things happening which but a generation ago would have stirred 
the country to a white heat of anger.” But the efforts of the Protestant 
clergy are no less dangerous. It is the Protestant priesthood now inciting 
the bills before Congress to make religious teaching obligatory in common 
schools. Cardinal Gibbons thinks religious and secular education should 
not be divorced, but no less does Protestant Rev. Dr. Hill, in the Forum , 
also warmly vindicate the right of the state to compel religious teaching 
in the public schools. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, a short time before his 
death published an article to which the press referred at time of its pub¬ 
lication as very similar to those presented by the Roman Catholic clergy. 
Dr. Hodge declared Catholics had maintained a sounder and more consis¬ 
tent position as to education than Protestants had had the courage to assume. 
Bishop Littlejohn characterized Dr. Hodge’s paper as an expression of the 
views entertained by many thoughtful men-“ a deep and serious dis¬ 
satisfaction with the drift of the public schools.” Prof. Seeley, a foremost 
representative of New England Congregationalism, has expressed like 
opinions, while other Protestant bodies are showing increasing opposition 
to a form of purely secular education. And yet the history of the world 
shows that wherever ecclesiastical schools have been tried,—wherever 
the church has secured influence above that of the state, the standard 
of education has been universally lowered. 

Governor Thomas, of Utah, only last fall speaking of the public schools 
of that territory under control of the Mormon Church, says they in no 


5 


34 


respect compare with the schools of Washington, Montana or the Dakotas 
but are practically worthless. The experience of centuries past and pres¬ 
ent prove the danger of allowing a church of any name, the control of 
secular education. This not alone because of the lowered grade of instruc¬ 
tion, but also because of the greatly increased power of the church over 
human thought and human will gained by this means. In the light of 
past experience all bills, legislative or congressional, looking towards com¬ 
pulsory religious education of whatsoever character, should be most per¬ 
sistently and energetically opposed. 

In November last a Catholic Congress in honor of the hundredth anni¬ 
versary of the establistment of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in this 
country assembled in Baltimore. Priests of every degree, cardinal, 
monsiegneurs, arch-bishops, bishops, with hundreds of the laity took part. 
The whole tenor of this congress was an affirmation of the superiority of 
the church over the state. Among the notable points of its platform was 
one declaring that as the state made no provision for teaching religion, 
Catholics must continue to support their own schools, colleges, universi¬ 
ties already established and multiply and perfect others so that a Catholic 
education might be brought within the reach of every Catholic child in the 
United States. That resolution points to the first danger,—that the state 
must teach religion. 

The second notable point was shown in the tendency towards a prohibi¬ 
tion of free thought and free action on questions of labor, and what is 
known in Russia as “The will of the People.” It condemned nihilism, 
the one bright ray in that land of torture, Russia. Macaulay said of the 
French toilers what may be said of those of many another country, be that 
country Russia, England or the United States: “ In their wretchedness 
and despair there they sat waiting any leader that might bid them follow.” 
“How far from that condition now are myriads of our working men 
to-day, aye, and working women, too?” queries that old anti-slavery 
apostle, Parker Pillsbury. 

The most brilliant leaders of the commune were women ; and was it not 
just,—woman, the part of humanity most debased by church and by 
state—woman, upon whom the heaviest weight of all oppression falls ? 

“We hear,” remarks the Rev. Dr. Channing, “of the horrors of the 
Revolution ; but in this, as in other things, we recollect the effect, without 
thinking of the guiltier cxuse. The Revolution was, indeed, a scene of 
horror ; but when I look back on the reigns which preceded it, and which 
made Paris almost one great play and gambling-house, and when 1 see 
altar and throne desecrated by a licentiousness unsurpassed in any former 
age, I look on scenes as shocking to the calm and searching eye of reason 
and virtue as the 10th of August and the massacre of September. Blood¬ 
shed is indeed a terrible spectacle, but there are other things almost as 
fearful as blood. 

“ There are crimes which do not make us shout and turn pale like the 
guillotine, but deadlier in their workings. God forbid that I should say a 
word to weaken the thrill of horror with which we contemplate the out¬ 
rages of the French Revolution ! But when I hear that Revolution quoted 
to frighten us from Reform, to show us the danger of lifting up the de¬ 
pressed and ignorant mass, I must ask whence it came ? and the answer 
is, from the want of culture among the mass of the people, and from a 
corruption of the great, too deep to be purged away except by destruction. 
Even the Atheism and Infidelity of France were due chiefly to a licentious 
priesthood and a licentious court. It was Religion, so called, that due her 
own grave.” (“ Works,” vol. vj., 175, 176.) 


35 


A third notable recommendation of the Catholic platform was union of 
work with non-Catholics, i. e., Protestants, in order to bring about certain 
restrictive laws. It reads thus: “There are many christiau issues in 
which Catholics could come together with non-Catholics and shape civil 
legislation for the public weal. * We should seek alliance with non- 
Catholics for proper Sunday observance.” 

A paper read during the congress upon ‘ Sunday Observance ’ by Mark 
B. Tullo, of Cleveland, declared “what we should seek is an en rapport 
with the Protestant Christians who desire to keep the Sunday holy.” 

Cardinal Gibbons published a book as a contribution to the centennial 
anniversary, in which he also discusses this point of work in unison with 
Protestants. “So far from despising or rejecting their support,” he says, 
“ I would gladly hold out to them the right hand of fellowship so long as 
they unite with us in striking the common foe.” 

Thus the Catholic Church places itself in line with the National Reform 
Association, the American Sabbath Union, the Woman’s Christian Tem¬ 
perance Union, and with those bills already before Congress which are 
conspiring against the freedom of the people at large. As politics is said 
to make strange bed-fellows, so does conspiracy against freedom unite 
strange forces. 

A fourth notable suggestion of the platform was one looking to the 
formation of an exclusively Catholic associated press agency. 

To those who realize the formidable power of the Associated Press ,—its 
capability of creating public opinion,—its ability to report or suppress the 
truth—to color or to distort as it pleases—this recommendation was one of 
the most dangerous in the platform. 

Fifth : Divorces were declared to be the plague-spot on our civilization— 
a discredit to the government, a degradation of the female sex and a stand¬ 
ing menace to the sanctity of the marriage bond. It should be noted that 
this was the only time that woman or her especial interests were mentioned 
during the Congress. It should also be noted that it was under the offen¬ 
sive term of ‘ female,’ a word solely applicable to the animal functions 
which the church regards as woman’s single reason of existence. The sub¬ 
ject of divorce thus far has been entirely under control of man, whether 
in church or state. It is now time that woman should be consulted, and 
her opinion obtained as to the “ sanctity ” of a relation that brings suffi¬ 
cient cause for her to seek divorce. Not alone the rights of woman as wife 
and mother but the rights of children demand a home where, if there is cause 
for divorce, either through cruelty, drunkenness, incompatibility of 
temper or breaking of marriage vows, it can be obtained. Believing that 
the wife is not the servant of the husband, but possesses equality of nat¬ 
ural rights with him in the marriage relation, we look upon that portion 
of the catholic platform as a renewed menace to the growing legal inde¬ 
pendence of women, and as such we call especial attention to this point. 

Sixth : The key-note of the whole Congress, its last public statement in 
line with its general tendency towards declaring the church to be super¬ 
ior to the state, lay in that portion of the platform which demanded that 
the temporal power of the Pope should be guaranteed ; which declared 
that the absolute freedom of the Holy See was indispensible to the peace 
of the church and the welfare of mankind and which asserted that this 
freedom should be scrupulously maintained by all secular governments. 



36 


Charles J. Bonaparte discussed this portion of the platform in a speech, 
“ The Independence of the Holy See,” suggesting that the more important 
provisions of the “ law of guarantees ” might be enforced in a treaty be¬ 
tween all the great powers and thus obtain an international sanction. He 
counselled Catholics not to be passive, declaring that a real solution of the 
question must be the universal conviction among good men of all countries, 
that to violate it would be to wrong mankind. “ Whether a captive or an 
exile, the Pope can never be a suly'ect.” 

Thus the whole drift of this Congress was shown to be the supremacy of 
the church and the restoration to the Pope of the power held by him in 
the middle ages when he excommunicated kings, released subjects from 
their national allegiance, held the priesthood of every country as above 
the control of civil law, and for the grossest crimes subject only to ecclesi¬ 
astical rule :—a system which really destroyed the national form of every 
government, making them but dependencies upon the papal power. The 
same view was continued in a speech by the Right Rev. R. Gilmour, bishop 
of Cleveland, at the dedication of the Catholic University in Washington, 
immediately following the Congress. He declared it to be a political and 
social heresy which assumes and asserts that the state is all temporal and 
religion all spiritual. He declared that no state can or should exist which 
does not recognize God as the supreme authority, that Catholics were 
willing to accept state schools as such on condition that the child should 
be taught religion and the laws of morality. 

Early this year, some two months after the centenary, the Pope issued 
another encyclical, the most important since his accession to the throne 
of the Pontiff. Its chief points were the declaration of the supremacy of 
the church over the state ; its order of resistance to the state if things 
prejudical to the church, or hostile to the duties imposed by religion, or 
the authority of Jesus Christ in the person of the supreme pontiff are com¬ 
manded. Directions were given to make politics serve the interests of 
Catholicism; that men who promised to merit well of Catholicism should be 
supported for office, the encyclical closing with an admonition not to crit¬ 
icize the actions of a superior, even when they appear to merit just censure. 

No more thoroughly retrogressive middle-age document has appeared 
from papacy during the present century, none more antagonistic to the 
republican ideas of the equality of man with man, the equal right of each 
human being to self-government in all things. 

The great danger of the papacy lies in that it places itself above all civil 
power; the real meaning of the word ‘ papacy,’ is religion in place of 
civil power, and it is not confined in signification to the church of Rome. 
The papacy exists in the Greek Church of Russia, in the Anglican Church 
of England and it is making an attempt to fasten itself upon this country 
through the efforts of “the Christian party in politics” to introduce an 
acknowledgement of the Christian religion and the bible as the source of 
all governmental power in the United States. It is not the Pope of Rome 
alone who places himself above all civil power in the demand made by 
himself and his followers that he shall be acknowledged the source of 
civil and political power, but the various Protestant sects of this 
country are working to a similar end—that the form of religion known as 
Protestant shall be recognized in the Constitution as the source of all 
power, instead as now, the people. 


37 


The modern democratic-republican idea is the right of every individual 
to his own or her own judgment upon all matters. The centralized-clerical 
idea is that no person has a right to his or her own judgment upon either 
religious or political questions. In all that most deeply concerns the indi¬ 
vidual he or she is to bow to the church, embodied in the priesthood. The 
laity, unless acting under specific direction of the priesthood, are not 
recognized as possessing right to thought or the exercise of judgment. 

But while in this country there is “less friction between Catholics and 
Protestants than elsewhere in the world,” it is because here religious lib¬ 
erty is based upon civil liberty, and while, as shown by the Catholic Cen¬ 
tenary, this body is better and more fully organized for aggressive work than 
ever before, it is necessary for us to examine the condition of Protestantism. 
In the statements with reference to Catholic intent doubtless all before me 
will agree. We have been taught to watch Catholic action, while blindly 
looking upon Protestants as to be fully trusted. Because of this blind faith in 
the purity of Protestant motives—a belief in their entire devotion to liberty 
—the present danger from Protestant effort towards the destruction of 
secular liberty in the United States, is much beyond that of Catholicism. 
The same spirit animates each body—the effort of each is the same—a 
union of the church and the state, with the church as controlling power. 
But Catholicism has not proceeded as far, has not taken as decided steps 
to bring this condition about, as Protestantism has. 

Church aggression is the foremost danger of the day, and in saying 
church aggression I do not refer specifically to the Catholics, but more 
emphatically to the Protestants. The Church as a Church of whatever 
name is based on the one central idea, supreme control over the thought, 
will and action of mankind. 

The National Reform Association is a body of Protestants, members of 
many different denominations, which declares that a written constitution 
ought to contain explicit evidence of the Christian character and purpose 
of the nation which frames it. The silence of the constitution of the 
United States in regard to Christianity, causes this body to seek an amend¬ 
ment which shall incorporate in it a statement of such belief. As the 
Preamble is everywhere recognized as the most important part of a con¬ 
stitution, stating the source of its authority and the objects for which it is 
framed, it is this part of the constitution that “ The Christian Party in 
Politics” has selected for its attack. As it now stands the preamble reads 
thus : 

“ We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect 
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the com¬ 
mon defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this consti¬ 
tution for the United States of America.” 

As amended, after “ We the people of the United States,” it would 
read : “ recognizing Almighty God as the source of all power and author¬ 

ity in civil government, our Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler of nations, and 
the Bible as the standard to decide all moral issues in political life, in order 
to form a Christian government, etc.” 

At a convention of the National Reform Association, 1888, Rev. W. J. 
Coleman, Professor of Political Science in Genave College, Pennsylvania, 
spoke upon “The proposed Christian Amendment.” As has many times 


38 


been done at woman suffrage conventions, he critically defined the con¬ 
stitution as 

First. “ The constitution of the United States is the supreme law of 
the land.” 

Second. “ The constitution is the only authoritative expression of the 
will of the people of the United States.” 

Third. The constitution is the exclusive basis of statute law, both in the 
national’government and in the States.” 

Fourth. “ The constitution is a statement of the principles by which 
the people have chosen to be governed.” 

These statements of the reverend gentleman will be admitted, and it is 
because a constitution is superior to all statutory enactments that the wary 
and Jesuitical National Reform Association, and the entire “Christian 
Party in Politics,” are not content with the enactment of laws by Congress 
in their interest, but demand a constitutional amendment, so that their 
plans may enter the very basis of statute laws. Moreover with the wis¬ 
dom of the serpent it makes the preamble its point of attack, well know¬ 
ing that in law, the preamble is held as the explanatory part—the diction¬ 
ary I may say of the whole constitution. 

Chief Justice Jay regarded the preamble of the Constitution of the 
United States as an authoritative guide to a correct interpretation of that 
instrument, (2 Dallas 419). Coke says, (Lit. 796), “ The preamble of a 
statute is a good means to find out the meaning of the statute, and is, as it 
were, a key to the understanding thereof.” 

Judge Story in commentaries on the constitution (vol. 1, book 3, chap. 6) 
says, “ The importance of examining the preamble for the purpose of 
expounding the language of a statute has always been felt and universally 
conceded in all judicial proceedings.” 

Under this array of authority as to the importance of the preamble, we 
easily discover the reason that the National Reform Association desires ‘to 
amend’ the preamble of the constitution of the United States. Once that 
is changed to read as it desires, this association will possess the power to 
interpret the whole instrument in unison with that change. As legal 
authorities maintain that the constitution was not established by the 
United States in their sovereign capacity, but by ‘the people’ of the United 
States, in attacking the preamble, 4 the Christian Party in Politics ’ works 
as astutely as any Jesuitical body on earth. Subtilty, finesse, intrigue 
could go no further than the effort to change the preamble to the con¬ 
stitution. 

At a convention of the Reformed Presbyterians in Newburgh, New York, 
1887, the synod after discussion of “ National Reform ” and the question of 
acknowledgement of God in the constitution, adopted this resolution : 

“ Resolved , That we will endeavor to teach more forcibly the duty of our 
nation to God and the Bible view of civil government, and will make our 
testimony more emphatic against the infidelity of the civil government, 
and will maintain our position of political dissent in refusing the election 
franchise to put into office men who are bound by their official oath to 
support the constitution of the United States, and we will become respon¬ 
sible for suffrage only when they become responsible to Christ by their 
official oath.” 

At the convention of this sect in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June, 1888 
resolutions were adopted disowning the nation as long as it refused to 


39 


acknowledge Christ as its king, and the synod was directed to see that 
members of the congregation did not identify themselves with the nation 
by any act implying allegiance. 

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union is firmly united with the 
National Reform Association ; it is a component part of that body ; its 
chief officers are officers of that association ; its work is the same, as the 
speeches of its president and the resolutions of its conventions fully show. 
It not only endorses the aim and ends of that association, but that body 
depends more fully upon the work of the W. C. T U. for ultimate success 
than it does upon its own specific efforts. As far back as 1886 the leaders 
of the W. C. T. U. were enrolled among the Vice-Presidents of the National 
Reform Association. At its annual convention, 1888, Dr. McAllister de¬ 
clared that “ movement bound to succeed through the influence of the 
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,” while district secretary Gault 
said, that “ The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition 
Party had become so entirely National Reform organizations, that the reg¬ 
ular National Reform organizers had ceased to organize local National 
Reform clubs as such, but worked through those bodies to spread its ideas.” 

When the purposes of the National Reform Association are accomplished 
the consent of the governed for men will stand where it does among wom¬ 
en to-day— nowhere. 

The first national convention of the American Sabbath Union was held 
in Washington, December, 1888. Just previous to this convention the 
state of Illinois held a convention of similar purport at which time two 
statements were especially emphasized. 

1. That Christians do not keep Sunday as they ought. 

2. That other people do not go to church as they ought. 

Members of the Christian Party have not hesitated to declare that at¬ 
tendance upon church should be made compulsory. But as long as the 
sun shines the wind blows, flowers blossom and all nature performs its 
usual functions on that day, man should be as free as nature. Sunshine 
and storm are out of such people’s reach or they too would doubtless be 
held responsible. To be fully consistent the ‘ Christian Party ’ should 
place animals and insects on trial as was done in Christian lands only a 
few hundred years since. The light of advancing civilization has not yet 
touched the majority of Christians ; the Christian party in politics is the 
fifteenth century living in the nineteenth—its members are the heathen of 
the world whom civilization has not yet touched. 

This National Sunday Union, which is another branch of the Christian 
party in politics, was first suggested by Dr. H. F. Crafts in 1887. In May, 
1888, he addressed a memorial to the Methodist General Conference assem¬ 
bled in New York,—that same General Conference, that in emulation of 
the world’s anti-slavery conference in London, 1840, and the world’s tem¬ 
perance convention in New York, 1854, refused to receive regularly 
appointed woman delegates. The Methodist Conference of 1888, having 
denied to women the right of representation on the ground that laymen 
did not include women, entered “ cordially ” into the plan of a National 
Sabbath Union. The general assembly of the Presbyterian church north, 
the Presbyterian church south, the United Presbyterian church, the Bap¬ 
tist Union, the Congregationalists, the Methodist Presbyterian church and 
fifteen others entered heartily into this plan of organization. In addition 



40 


the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the National Reform Associa¬ 
tion, the various State and National Sunday Schools, the Knights of 
Labor, the body of Locomotive Engineers and the 9,000,000 of the Catholic 
church, priestly and lay, men, women, children and the babe in arms, are 
all counted as sustaining this union. 

As Catholics and Protestants are united in this Sunday observance de¬ 
mand it has been pertinently asked which kind of Sunday keeping is 
expected? All the Catholic priesthood require is morning attendance 
upon mass ; this is especially true in Europe, after which observance the 
day is spent as one of holiday enjoyment. Bull-fights in Catholic Spain, 
the opera in music-loving Italy, dances in merry France, drives, sails, 
drinks everywhere. 

Is this to be the style, or are we to return to Puritan custom, 

“ Hanging of his cat on Monday 
For killing of a mouse on Suuday,” 

and no one allowed to drive or walk for pleasure, or for rest. Which 
Sunday is it to be ? 

The purpose of this Sunday observance as directly stated by Dr. Crafts 
himself is not that people should enjoy the day as one of rest from usual 
labor, it is not for the benefit of man, but in order to commemorate the 
work of creation. The grounds for its demand are purely religious. 

Every law of this character is dangerous because of the fact that law 
and right soon grow to be synonomous in the minds of men. Hon. Shel¬ 
don Amos, former Professor of Jurisprudence in Oxford University, 
speaking in regard to certain evil legislation in England, said : “ What¬ 

ever law recognizes and provides for is regarded as morally right, comes 
to be so regarded by the hereditary instincts of the human mind.” 

It has been clearly proven that the enforcement of rest at any time, is 
the enforcement of idleness, and not only tends to the destruction of self- 
reliance but to the increase of crime. In some branches of business en¬ 
forced Sunday rest means overwork the remaining six days, or as Chauncey 
Depew says of railroading “ somebody must work harder during the rest 
of the week than has hitherto been the case.” 

While France, Mexico, Brazil and other countries are getting *rid of 
clericalism and centralized power, it is one of the mysteries of the age that 
the United States seems striving to incorporate these two systems in her 
form of government. This tendency strikes every observant person, as does 
also its pretext, ‘protection of the people.’ This theory of ‘ protection ’ has 
been the assumption through past ages, governing every attempt for the 
destruction of liberty. There are now before congress several bills and 
amendments of this dangerous ‘ protective ’ character. Forty-four amend¬ 
ments to the constitution were introduced during the fiftieth congress, 
ranging from a control of marriage and divorce to a six years term for 
the Presidency. 

The chief danger of the present situation lies in the fact that the majority 
of the people do not see that there is danger. One friend wrote, “ To me 
it does not mean that so alarming a state of things exists, to me it is day¬ 
break everywhere.” 

Yes, it is daybreak everywhere; we see its radiance in Europe, in South 
America, in Africa. Peaceful revolutions are rapidly taking place on two 


* 


41 


» 


hemispheres, yet just as a dark cloud shadows some parts of the earth 
even at break of day, heralding a coming storm, so while it is breaking day 
in many countries, yet over our own beloved land the fell shadow sweeps, 
over it falls the pall of a coming storm. Amid so much liberty, people 
fail to see the gradual encroachments of organized power either in the 
church or in the state. But so sure am I of the coming storm that I can¬ 
not believe it will pass over us without the possible shedding of blood. 
The struggle will be fierce and bitter ; a man’s enemies will be of his own 
household, for this storm will not be, as some surmise, a warfare between 
Catholic and Protestant; it will be a battle of the liberal element against 
the church and its dogmas of whatever name or nature. After a time 
liberty will triumph, and then and not until then shall we see a true Republic 
upon this soil. As the battle for political liberty began here so will that 
for full religious liberty end here. The conflict we were sure had gone by 
will again arise ; the decisive battle has yet to be fought. It seems to 
me when that hour has passed there will be no more church forever, for 
science and the spirit of free thought will have destroyed its very foun¬ 
dations. 

As the above speech was necessarily voluminous, in order that the 
dangers which created the call for the convention might be fully pre¬ 
sented before it, that portion bearing upon the extent of our 
country has been omitted. 


Monday, February 24th, 3 p. m. 

Mrs. Gage upon calling the meeting to order said : “ We are 

pleased at the large attendance this afternoon. While we know that 
throughout the country there is a very great interest taken in the 
subject, we were not sure of the amount of interest that would be 
shown in Washington. The result is gratifying. 

Mrs. Gage. —I take pleasure in introducing Miss Susan H. 
Wixon, a name well known in all parts of the country among those 
who read liberal papers. 

Miss Wixon. — Mrs. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The subject of my 
paper is this : Has the church been an advantage or a disadvantage to 
women? The assertion has frequently been made that the church has 
been and is woman’s best friend ; that all she is to-day she owes to the 
church and to religion. You have all heard that many and many a time no 
doubt. Now let us examine and see just what truth there is in it, and we 
will not go any further to-day than the Christian religion and church. As 
usually understood the church is an active body of Christians engaged in 
the worship of some unknown Creator or Deity. Outside of that it is a 
dark subject surrounded and encrusted with chains, thumbscrews, dun¬ 
geons and caves. It appears to us surrounded with superstition, cruelty 
and stupidity. I make no false statement, ladies and gentlemen, which 
the history of the church will not corroborate. Hobbs, the celebrated free 


6 



42 


thinker, informs us that “Superstition is religion out of fashion, 
and religion is superstition in fashion.” A traveller once visiting an 
old Cathedral was shown a small vial covered with cobwebs. “ I see 
nothing but a dirty, empty vial,” he said. “ Oh, sir,” was the reply, “That 
vial contains some of the very darkness that Moses spread over Egypt.” 
And it is that very darkness that is spread over Europe and even America, 
and whatever woman enjoys to-day has been graciously conferred upon 
her by the Christian church. Woman has accepted this position conferred 
upon her without inquiring whether it was a true one or not, because a 
part of her education has been that she has no business to inquire. To go 
back to the law and the prophets, we find woman regarded as simply a 
trifle, a fraction of a man, who with great modesty wrote himself a “ Son 
of God.” While he wrote woman down as simply “ Daughters of men.” 
See the difference. The early “ Sons of God” engaged in the work of 
glorifying themselves and the old Jews were perhaps in some strange and 
bewildered state of glorification when they hatched up the story—where a 
woman is represented as simply a feature of the creation. Poor dusty 
Adam could not find a creature broad enough to give him a good dusting. 
He searched the whole of creation but could not find a companion among 
them all. Then the most wonderful of all surgical operations is per¬ 
formed, one of the most skilled on record. You have read how 
how Adam hid behind the bush confessing himself a miserable dupe of 
one of his own bones. Now, do you think that is a ridiculous tale ? It is 
a vile story but is accepted by the piety of the whole Christian world, and 
from this story does the inferiority of woman date. She was of so little 
importance that the ten commandments were not even written for her but 
were all for men’s benefit. Hence we have been taught that woman was 
not to be considered for herself at all? that she was made for man’s benefit 
and that man was made for his own benefit expressly. Even in the 
contract of marriage, in the olden time women were bought and sold like 
cattle. If men could not pay for their wives c. o. d. they could serve seven 
years for them. In some parts of England wives have been bought like 
chickens ready dressed for three and sixpence. People make a great fuss 
about the Mormons in Utah. They see the mote in their neighbors eye, 
but are unmindful of the beam in their own eye. The difference between 
Mormon Utah and Washington is that one is in broad daylight and the 
other in the darkness. The Mormons are certainly at fault, but how about 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? How about Solomon? The entire Biblical 
record ? The message of the New Testament is no better. It does riot 
speak of the elevation of woman—not one word. Did Christ ever, in his 
sermon on the Mount or any where else, ever say any thing about the 
equality of the sexes ? Never. Did he name one woman among his twelve 
disciples ? No. What did he say to his mother—the most sacred word in 
the language—“ Woman what have I to do with thee?” Did Paul bring 
a message of hope and trust to woman. * ‘ Let a woman keep silence and 
if she would learn anything let her go home and ask her husband.” 
Husbands are not so willing to impart knowledge,—if they have it to 
impart. “Where are you going my dear?” “Going to meet a man.” 
“Where were you so late last night? ” “ At the Lodge.” “ What made 

you go to bed with your boots on?” “ Mind your own business ” is the 
reply. This is not very encouraging. St. Paul says, “ If a woman desires 


43 


to learn anything let her go home and ask her husband.” No wonder 
there are so many ignorant women with such ignorant school masters 
at home. In accordance with the instructions of St. Paul, Wesley 
taught new husbands that their first duty was to teach the wife 
subjection and if necessary with a stick. The church teaches that woman 
brought death and disaster into this beautiful world, but nevertheless we 
will let you teach a class in the Sunday school. You are too vile to open 
your mouth in our church meetings, but you may make jackets for the 
heathen ; you may circulate tracts and biblical literature ; solicit funds 
for superannuated ministers—this is a kind of work that men do not 
care to do, therefore they will let the women do it. One of the bishops 
of the early church, afterwards made a Saint, gave the following 
description of his idea of a woman. “She is a necessary evil, a natural 
temptation, a deserved calamity, a domestic peril, and a painted ill.” The 
Bible teaches in some portions that even the touch of a woman is contam¬ 
ination. All the angels are represented as men. In the Sixth Century 
it was declared that woman was so vile she was not to receive the Lord’s 
supper. There is no doubt that the church has constituted itself an abso¬ 
lute monarch as far as woman is concerned. Is it any wonder that she 
has remained so long in the bondage of the church, regarded always, as 
Prentice says, as a side issue, a necessary stumbling block, something that 
the world could not get rid of ? A man had fallen in such a manner as to 
fracture his skull. He was taken to a physician and it was found neces- 
sery to remove his brains temporarily. During the operation he ran out 
of the office before the braiils were replaced. Some time after the physi¬ 
cian met the man on the street. The physician said : “You left your 
brains in my office.” “ My brains,” said the. man, “ why I have not the 
slightest use for them. I have just joined the church. It is of no conse¬ 
quence whatever.” She is told she must not exercise her judgment in 
church matters and only do as she is told to do. Of what advantage has 
the church been to woman in the present century ? Let Mrs. Gage and 
her compeers answer ; let them tell how the church doors were slammed 
in their faces, and do you suppose the W. C. T. U. would be recognized 
to-day as it is were it not for that one word “ Christian” attached to it? 
Has the church ever been known to plead for the higher education of 
woman ? Has it ever spoken in her favor, that woman’s work should be 
paid as well as man’s? The answer is never ! Never ! Never ! Her con¬ 
dition is better, not on account of Christianity but people have exercised 
more liberality in everything—and that did not originate in the church. 
The church is the last to let go of the old and the first to impede the new. 
It never progresses ; it is the people that move forward. The first sewing 
machine did more for woman’s advancement in one day than the prayers 
of a thousand years before. Woman is better than the church she repre¬ 
sents. She is to-day the superstructure and pillar of the church. Were she 
once out of the church the whole fabric would drop. When she learns 
that the church has not been her friend but her foe, she will resign her 
allegiance as most degrading. She will then turn to the broad liberalism 
that has ever been her best friend ; it has respected her as an equal; it 
has opened over three hundred avocations for her ; it has sent her forth as 
a teacher of a new and better doctrine. It has said to her, speaking as a 
man> __“ You are not only our equal but our superior, no one has a right 





44 


to deny you all the truth, civilization and education necessary and desir¬ 
able to obtain.’' This will come from a division of knowledge, from a free 
and liberal press, and never has it come from the ignorant and cruel 
religion of the past; never has it come from the superstitions of the pre¬ 
vailing priesthood. Closing my eyes to the injustice that makes woman 
what she is, I see what she might be under different and more enlightened 
circumstances. I see her graceful in physical figure and rich in mental 
strength. A power in spiritual life, an element of good in a wise govern¬ 
ment. I see her no longer a slave but an independant and wise being ; 
capable of performing her share in the world’s broad field of action. That 
day will come, and I do not think it is far distant when she will be a free 
woman outside of the church, and no longer in bondage. 

Mrs. Gage. —While recognizing the fact that women have been 
the special victims of church tyranny let men remember that they 
* themselves have not escaped, and that since Christianity first came 
into the world nine millions of both sexes have lost their lives by 
torture under that form of religion. Let them remember that 
although women have been the most seriously injured they too have 
been degraded through false teaching and bondage of the will. 

The secretary then read the committees appointed in Executive 
Session, after which Mr. Jackson, a delegate from Delaware, ex¬ 
member of the legislature of that State addressed the convention : 


I think we have had as much to-day as we can well digest. I never like 
to speak to an intelligent audience of fatigue and I regard this question of 
one of the greatest value that can take the attention of the American 
people in this or any other country. It is an organization against power 
in our country against a desire and intention to bring us under the reign 
of despotism. I represent also my wife, with whom I have lived for nearly 
fifty years. I myself, Mrs. Chairman, am the descendant of a man who 
was burned at the stake for non-comformity, and I feel the old hero’s 
blood boil within me when I see an intention to destroy the foundation of 
the United States of America, being carried out by the church. In the 
first place I will merely state that I came to this meeting with my wife 
understanding that this convention was based upon the cause of woman 
suffrage, at the same time it appears to be somewhat of a new departure 
inasmuch as it is a division of woman suffragists known as “liberal minded 
women.” This term seems to call for definition. To me it appears to be 
those who are willing to take a natural and rational view on religious 
questions as distinguished from political. Ladies and gentlemen, I was 
bred a Quaker and if they had walked fast enough I think I would have 
been with them yet, for they are good people. I think Quakers are upon 
somewhat the same ground that you are taking in formulating the idea of 
the light within. Let us see for the new Woman’s movement whither we 
will be led touching woman suffrage and other questions by taking this 
method—the method of inner light. The waters are now being troubled on 
every hand. The lessons of yesterday savor of decay. 


“ Doubts to the world’s child-heart unknown 
Greet us now from star and stone.” 



45 


I would like to travel with you to the stars and question them. I think the 
stars themselves could point out and tell us of the rank growths in our coun¬ 
try—Mormonism and the like, and the rushing of the waters as the great 
Romish church throws the harpoon makes us lay back on our oars and 
fear. A portion of the Protestant church feeling the ground sliding away 
from them, in order to protect themselves are attempting to strike our 
country to the heart in the name of God. It is charitable to suppose 
that they know not what they do. But to return to the great question of 
woman suffrage in a government professing to be ruled by the people and 
for the people. Is not one reason that you have not long been citizens and 
had a voice in government matters because you are partially enslaved by 
the consolidated power of Judaism ? In ancient India they tell us that 
woman was held in the highest respect and reverence and exercised all 
her rights. In the Hindu history man was made the first one to dispute 
the divine command. Eva his wife pleaded with him, yet she did not for¬ 
sake him when trouble followed. Then, says the old writer, a voice came 
from the clouds, “ Woman thou hast only sinned for love of th.y husband. 
I pardon him and thee also for thy sake.” But in the Hebrew scriptures— 
see the difference—God said : “ In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children 

and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” This 
Jewish law is the one carried out by the church—this, ladies is the biblical 
law that you still live under. It is this same God whose name the goody- 
goody hold in fear who holds a place in our constitution. What says the 
Vice-President of the National Reform Association : “If the opponents of 
our people do not like our government and its Christian features, let them 
go to some wild desert land and in the name of the devil and for the sake 
of the devil subdue it and set up a government of infidelity and then stay 
there until they die.” What a sweet Christian spirit uttered that! Listen 
to the Reverend Edwards before the same association: “What are the 
rights of Atheists?”—and that includes all who differ with him—“ I would 
tolerate them as I would a poor lunatic so long as they do not rave.” Thus 
it is that they call us infidels who do not subscribe to their dogmatic opin¬ 
ions. They do not realize that we are seeking and finding higher truths 
than they. Like the poor old negro in the dark days of man slavery, who 
prayed : “ Oh Lord, shake my master over hell—shake him well—but, 

Oh Lord, don’t drop him in.” We will add, Oh Lord, let them live in this 
fair country to see their vileness and repent their folly. Ladies I hope and 
think your organization of a liberal woman’s movement will be a grand 
success. Unite all forces for concerted action in the name of truth. 

The Secretary announced for the evening session at 8 p. m., a 
poem from Miss de Cleyre, also addresses from Dr. Coues, the Rev. 
Olympia Brown and Mrs. Burnz of New York. 

Mrs. Gage then adjourned the convention. 


46 


Monday, February 24th, 8 p. m. 

Upon calling the convention to order, Mrs. Gage directed atten¬ 
tion to small circulars upon the platform describing the Free 
Thinkers Badge Pin, designed by Lucy L. Churchill of Ohio, which 
were upon sale at the Secretary’s table. The letters U. M. L. upon 
the circle signifying Universal Mental Liberty ; the swinging circle 
within implying that the world moves. Miss Churchill, an invalid, 
a member of the Shut-In-Society, supports herself from the proceeds 
of the sale of her pin and it is hoped that all present will patronize 
her. 

Mrs. Gage then introduced Miss Voltairine de Cleyre, who with 
much dramatic effect, recited an original poem written by her for 
the occasion. 

THE GODS AND THE PEOPLE. 

What have you done, O skies, 

That the millions should kneel to you? 

Why should they lift wet eyes, 

Grateful with human dew ? 

Why should they clasp their hands, 

And bow at thy shrines, O heaven, 

Thanking thy high commands 
For the mercies that thou hast given ? 

What have those mercies been, 

O thou, who art called the Good ; 

Who trod through a world of sin, 

And stood where the felon stood ? 

What is that wondrous peace 
Vouchsafed to the child of dust, 

For whom all doubt shall cease 
In the light of thy perfect trust? 

How hast Thou heard their prayers 
Smoking up from the bleeding sod, 

Who, crushed by their weight of cares, 

Cried up to Thee, Most High God ? 
****** 

Where the swamps of Humanity sicken, 

Read the answer, in dumb, white scars ! 

You, Skies, gave the sore and the stricken, 

The light of your far-off stars ! 

The children who plead are driven, 

Shelterless, through the street, 

Receiving the mercy of Heaven 
Hard-frozen in glittering sleet ! 

The women who prayed for pity, 

Who called on the saving Name, 

Through the walks of your merciless city 
Are crying the rent of shame ! 


47 


The starving, who gazed on the plenty 
In which they might not share, 

Have died in their hunger, rent by 
The anguish of unheard prayer ! 

The weary who plead for remission, 

For a moment, only, release, 

Have sunk, with unheeded petition :— 

This is the Christ-pledged Peace. 

These are the mercies of Heaven, 

These are the answers of God 
To the prayers of the agony-shriven, 

From the paths where the millions plod ! 

The silent scorn of the sightless ! 

The callous ear of the deaf ! 

The wrath of Might to the mightless ! 

The shroud, and the mourning sheaf! 

Light—to behold their squalor ! 

Breath—to draw in life’s pain ! 

Voices to plead and call for 

Heaven’s help !—hearts to bleed—in vain ! 

He * * * * * 

What have you done, O Church, 

That the weary should bless your name ? 

Should come with faith’s holy torch 
To light up your altared fane ? 

Why should they kiss the folds 
Of the garment of your High Priest ? 

Or bow to the chalice that holds 
The wine of your Sacred Feast ? 

Have you blown out the brea-th of their sighs ? 
Have you strengthened the weak, the ill ? 

Have you wiped the dark tears from their eyes, 
And bade their sobbings be still ? 

Have you touched, have you known, have you felt, 
Have you bent and softly smiled 
In the face of the woman, who dealt 
In lewdness—to feed her child ? 

Have you heard the cry in the night 
Going up from the outraged heart, 

Masked from the social sight 

By the cloak that but angered the smart ? 

Have you heard the children’s moan, 

By the light of the skies denied? 

Answer, O Walls of Stone, 

In the name of your Crucified ! 
****** 

Out of the clay of their heart-break, 

From the red dew of its sod, 

You have mortared your bricks, for Christ’s sake, 
And reared a palace to God ! 

Your painters have dipped their brushes 
In the tears and the blood of the race, 

Whom, living , your dark frown crushes— 

And limned—a dead Savior’s face ! 




48 


You have seized, in the name of God, the 
Child’s crust from famine’s dole ; 

You have taken the price of its body 
And sung a mass for its soul! 

You have smiled on the man, who, deceiving, 
Paid exemption to ease your wrath ! 

You have cursed the poor fool who believed him. 
Though her body lay prone in your path ! 

Yon have laid the seal on the lip ! 

You have bade us to be content ! 

To bow ’neath our master’s whip, 

And give thanks for the scourge—“ heav’n sent.” 

These, O Church, are your thanks : 

These are the fruits without flaw. 

That flow from the chosen ranks 
Who keep in your perfect law ! 

Doors hard-locked on the homeless ! 

Stained glass windows for bread ! 

On the living, the law of dumbness, 

And the law of need, for—the dead! 

Better the dead, who, not needing, 

Go down to the vaults of the Earth, 

Than the living whose hearts lie bleeding, 
Crushed by you at their very birth! 

******* 

What have you done, O State, 

That the toilers should shout your ways? 

Should light up the fires of their hate 
If a “traitor” should dare dispraise? 

How do you guard the trust 
That the people repose in you ? 

Do you keep to the law of the just, 

And hold to the changeless true ? 

What do you mean when you say 
“The home of the free and brave?” 

How free are your people, pray? 

Have you no such thing as a slave ? 

What are the lauded “rights,” 

Broad-sealed, by your Sovereign Grace ? 

What are the love-feeding sights 
You yield to your subject race ? 
****** 

The rights?—Ah ! the right to toil, 

That another, idle, may reap ; 

The right to make fruitful the soil 
And a meagre pittance to keep ! 

The right of a woman to own 
Her body, spotlessly pure, 

And starve in the street—alone ! 

The right of the wronged—to endure ! 

The right of the slave—to its yoke ! 

The right of the hungry—to pray ! 

The right of the toiler—to vote 
For the master who buys his day ! 



49 


You have sold the sun and the air ! 

You have dealt in the price of blood! • 

You have taken the lion’s share 
While the lion is fierce for food ! 

You have laid the load of the strong 
On the helpless, the young, the weak ! 

You have trod out the purple of wrong ;— 

Beware where its wrath shall wreak ! 

“ Let the Voice of the People be heard ! 

O—” You strangled it with your rope ! 

Denied the last dying word, 

While your Trap and your Gallows spoke ! 

But a thousand voices rise 
Where the words of the martyr fell ; 

The seed springs fast to the Skies 
Watered deep from that bloody well ! 
******* 

Hark ! Low down you will hear 
The storm in the underground ! 

Listen, Tyrants, and fear ! 

Quake, at that muffled sound ! 

“ Heavens, that mocked our dust, 

Smile on, in your pitiless blue ! 

Silent as you are to us, 

So silent are we to you ! 

“ Churches that scourged our brains ! 

Priests that locked fast our hands ! 

We planted the torch in your chains : 

Now gather the burning brands ! 

“ States, that have given us lazu, 

When we asked for the right to earn bread ! 

The Sword that Damocles saw," 

By a hair swings over your head ! 

“What ye have sown ye shall reap : 

Teardrops, and Blood, and Hate, 

Gaunt gather before your Seat 
And knock at your palace gate ! 

“There are murderers on your Thrones ! 

There are thieves in your Justice-halls ! 

White Leprosy cancers their stones, 

And gnaws at their worm-eaten walls ! 

“And the Hand of Belshazzar’s Feast 
Writes over, in flaming light, 

Thought's kingdom no more to the Priest; 

Nor the Lazo of Right to the Might'' 

VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE. 

I shall now have the pleasure of introducing one that needs no 
introduction to a Washington audience, Professor Coues, who will 
speak upon “The Clerical Dilemma.” 

Prof. Coues :— Ladies and Gentlemen : I could not resist this oppor¬ 
tunity, in compliance with the invitation to speak before you to-night, but 
I must begin by throwing myself upon your mercy. I have only recently 




7 



50 


left a long and tedious sick-bed, so I have been unable to prepare any 
formal remarks, but I will endeavor, so long as my strength shall hold 
out this evening, to present some facts that perhaps may be interesting to 
you. 

The grip is a treacherous disease, but there is something still more so, 
and that is the church in its encroachment or attempted encroachment 
upon the State. Is the time ripe for the discussion of such a point as that ? 
I think it is. You have only to open any newspaper in the land to-day to 
see that this question is to the front—it is everywhere—it will not down. 
Everywhere religious discussion is going on ; everywhere new points are 
coming up that were supposed to have been settled forever ; new ques¬ 
tions are arising ; new lines are forming. And one of the questions is— 
where are we tending? what is to be the end of this discussion? I know 
that there are times when events move fast, and that this is one of them ; 
for the time has come when the church does not so much speak by author¬ 
ity as it is put upon the defensive. It is put upon the defensive because 
there is something about it which fails to satisfy the human heart. Man 
is a religious animal and he will have a religion which shall satisfy his 
heart. If the church does not give it he will, if need be, invent a new 
religion. I believe I am advertised to speak to-night on the subject of 
“ The Clerical Dilemma.” Is the Clerical Dilemma that they believe what 
they preach, which proves them fools, or that they do not believe what 
they preach, which proves them knaves? There are two horns to that 
dilemma and in point of fact they center in this,—their dilemma is how 
not to be found out. Some philosophers, perhaps, in the past have found 
them out; some historians have found them out; the mass of the people 
have not, as yet; but there seems to be a possibility that the women are 
finding them out. It is a mistake to suppose that women need the church 
—it is the church that needs the women. Thackeray said, “ let us pray that 
our women folks may never find us out let the clergy re-echo that prayer 
and say : “ May the heart of woman never find us out.” I am a strong 

advocate and believer in woman suffrage. But I cannot help asking 
is woman fit for the ballot so long as she is enslaved by the church ? Let 
her free herself or be freed from that bondage as the first step to the use 
of the ballot. I say that the church is put upon the defensive. How does 
it undertake to defend itself ? 

There are several refuges of the church. One is the refuge of authority. 
That has been the refuge for every church from the time that the first 
page of history opens upon the human race under a priesthood claiming 
divine authority for its teachings. It is not less true to day that this 
claim of divine authority is made by the church—and upon what basis? 
In so far as it teaches anything pure, that is its authority; in so far as it 
does not, it has no authority. If authority fails,what is the next refuge of 
the church ? An assumed sanctity in its teachings. But facts of nature 
and truth are neither good nor evil in themselves. All the sanctity that 
can be claimed for the teaching of any church is such as it obtains from 
women and men who use such truths as they can discover for the benefit 
of their fellow-creatures. Authority—sanctity! This sanctity is a cover 
to prevent the lack of authority from being discovered. The canons of 
criticism that every thinking woman and man applies to any other fact 
in history or nature must not be applied to an alleged divine revelation or 



51 


authority of the church. In consequence of this, bible critics are the 
least critical; they lose their critical faculty the instant they approach 
questions clear and easy to solve were it not for the unreasoning attitude 
they take towards a particular book. If the refuges of authority and sanc¬ 
tity fail there is another resource. It is a vpry queer one ; I don’t like to 
criticise it. I will call it a refuge in Myth. Is there an orthodox religion 
to-day that is not founded on an unprovable baseless myth ? How about 
the myth of the creation of woman after and inferior to man ? bringing 
sin into the world and necessitating the sacrifice of a Savior, as if God 
made mistakes and was obliged to rectify them? That is the cardinal 
myth upon which all orthodox teachings rest to-day. But let me give you 
a concrete example before the public to-day, being discussed in the news¬ 
papers—the “Sunday law.” That institution of Sunday is probably one of 
the wisest and best in the world if you allow men and women to rest as 
they please, but when you introduce the religious element what becomes of 
it ? You make a myth of it. God instituted Sunday because he was tired 
and rested on that day? I think not. I cannot imagine a God that could 
get tired. How many of my hearers know the actual historical origin of 
Sunday ? As far back as we can trace Sunday in history it was instituted 
by Chaldean astrologers and was based upon the four quarters of the 
moon in a lunar month of twenty-eight days in which they kept every 
seventh day sacred to one of their gods or goddesses. It is one of the sim¬ 
plest astronomical facts in nature,—why then should it be reduced to the 
category of myth. Suppose that authority, sanctity and myth fail, is there 
any other resource ? Yes. The church is never without resources. What 
is it ? It is an appeal to the protection of the law. An appeal for the 
protection-^not of private beliefs; our constitution guarantees us freedom 
from molestation and protection in all our private beliefs—but to invoke 
the state to help bolster up the church. That is before the public to-day. 
It is an important question, being urged by the various branches of eccles¬ 
iastical bodies each in their own way and each for their own purposes. 
You see it in the “ Blair bill.” You see it in the attempt of the parochial 
schools to gain entire charge of the children. But what would be the 
result of these measures ? To place the church above the state. And if, 
in the present state of intelligence, women had the ballot, perhaps the 
result would be, that supremacy of the church would be established. I 
have too much confidence in the true feelings of right and wrong of most 
of the people to suppose that such a thing would ever become an estab¬ 
lished fact, but nevertheless the danger is; it is well to be aware of it. 
Should all the other refuges that I have enumerated fail there is one more. 
I will call it cruelty to children ; that is the idea of the parochial schools in 
which the Bible shall be taught. Perhaps not one of us forgets the 
horrors and terrors we suffered as little children, when we were absolutely 
without guile ; absolutely and literally taking everything in its exact 
sense as presented to us, never imagining for a moment there was any 
such thing as fraud in the world. Every church knows—and none knows 
better than the Catholic, of the indelible—or almost indelible—impress 
upon the mind of a child. But I doubt that these things will succeed. 
The pews are pushing the pulpits on, and the old theology seems to be 
replaced by a more rational interpretation of facts of human nature. At the 
present time it would be impossible for an intelligent audience to listen to 





52 


the sermons preached fifty years ago, or even twenty-five years ago. Men 
and women are not the same as they were a hundred or thousand years 
ago. Churches must keep pace with the people. How are they to keep 
up with the march of human intelligence ? In the first place they must 
satisfy the demands of science. This is a scientific age, in that the human 
mind is busy ; it is investigative ; it is thoughtful; it is taking note of 
things it was a sacrilege to take note of in the last generation. Science 
says to the church, “You shall not take refuge in authority, for it is not 
divine.” The authority of science is this. It says: “This is so and so; if you 
will go and inquire for yourself you will find it to be so ; and if you can 
prove to me that it is not so I will acknowledge my error and learn from 
you.” That is the scientific attitude and the church must satisfy that 
demand if it would keep pace with the thinkers of the present day. Every 
church is prone, of course, to put in the most favorable light its own 
history, but there must be no clerical anachronisms—there must be no 
lapses. They must not claim apostolic succession for anybody. No one 
who is not well acquainted with the history of his own church should 
raise his voice in argument—and I don’t know but the better acquainted 
he is with the history of his own religion the less he cares to say about it. 
And finally, after you have satisfied science, history and learning, you 
have got to satisfy the common sense of the people. Common sense is a 
very much abused term, but the world moves on it somehow. There may 
be but blundering progress; but after all it moves, and if the church wants 
to reach the intelligence of the people, let them talk common sense that 
the people can understand. Explain things to them and those things that 
won’t bear explanation—drop them, whether they come from the bible or 
not. What do you want them for ? As for creed ; everybody must have 
some form of creed. This Woman’s National Liberal Union formulates a 
creed ; but the religious creed is founded upon a false basis of authority 
which the common sense of the people rejects. Remove them from the 
face of the earth, for there are some that if you undertake to improve at 
all you can do nothing with. That creed of Mr. Calvin’s—a man who 
wanted to burn somebody else to death that did not agree with him—don’t 
touch that or it will be like unwrapping an Egyptian mummy that will 
crumble to dust in your hands—don’t touch that! But is there any truth 
in the church ? I think there is much truth in the church. Many of the 
most noble men and women I have ever met have been not only church 
members but clergymen. We have a clergyman with us this evening. 
I am sure a noble example of the profession—what more noble one 
would you wish to find—than Minot J. Savage of Boston ? How about the 
Rev. Heber Newton of New York? There is a liberal, pure-minded cler¬ 
gyman for you. And I might cite many such cases. Let us recognize all 
the good the churches have done ; let us recognize the moral principles 
they teach ; everything that is best in human nature—the necessity for 
kindness, goodwill and benevolence. But all these things are not incor¬ 
porated in the church. I don’t wish the church to have the monopoly of 
such things—they belong to us as well. In so far as the church agrees 
with credibility it is right; in so far as it gives us a reasonable hope that 
hereafter we may meet with a reasonable justice such as the ordinary 
judge might give to those brought before him for trial; but such hopes as 
there may be of a future life are not sustained by the authority of the 



53 


church or by alleged revelation. Are they sustained in no other way ? 
They are sustained in many ways. By an appeal to the facts of human 
nature, facts of the greater nature that surround us. Where shall we find 
these facts of nature ? For myself, I say, voicing only my own opinions 
as I would wish every one to do, there is a great body of natural fact 
before you that you can discover if you will, as nearly as possible demon¬ 
strating, if not a future life, at least a spiritual side to this one; and those 
proofs are found in the body of facts called spiritualistic. There are 
societies springing up in this and other countries to apply to these phe¬ 
nomena the same criticism of truth or untruth that are applied to other 
things and your religion, whatever it may be, will be most broadly im¬ 
proved when it takes in the facts of psychic science. But you will say— 
that is science and not religion. Anything true in religion must be scien¬ 
tifically true. Why does not the church look into these facts? For various 
reasons, one of which is that it would remove them from the category of 
religious belief and place them in the category of scientific knowledge, 
and by doing so the authority of the church would be at an end. 

Friends, I will not detain you longer. This movement now inaugurated is 
young ; it is, perhaps, based upon truths not perceptible to all—certainly 
not those which will receive universal sanction, but I think it will grow. 
This one, with a hundred others of the same kind, seems to be facing in 
the same direction. I should not be surprised if the time should come 
when it would be able to demonstrate many of the things I have just 
hinted at, and I should not be surprised if, among the results of the train 
of thought now coming on, the religious views which are held in some 
very high places now, would argue such weakness of mind or wickedness 
of heart, in the future, as would prove an obstacle to such persons holding 
any great office of public honor or trust. 

Mrs Gage then introduced Rev. Olympia Brown, a former co¬ 
worker in the woman suffrage ranks; Vice-President, for Wisconsin, 
in the National Woman Suffrage Association. 

Mrs. Brown. — Mrs. Chairman and Friends : I take it that the inspiring 
motive that has brought us together on this occasion is the love of liberty, 
and that whatever this convention may have been called, we all under¬ 
stand that we are here because we believe in freedom. Freedom of 
thought, freedom of speech, freedom of action, that is freedom most con¬ 
sistent with obedience to the law of truth and righteousness. God has 
impressed the love of liberty upon everything that he has made. In the 
early days when the race was still in the savage state, in that day might 
made right and the strong arm was the sanction of authority. Then 
strong men dominated; powerful nations overcame weak nations, and 
carried them into bondage. In that day labor was despised and the 
laborer was degraded because all the manual labor of the world was done 
by those in a position of servitude. Cicero says of the merchants: “Miser¬ 
able people, let them hold no office in the state.”- In Sparta we find that 
the better classes never engaged in manufacture or commerce, because 
they said : “ These things belong to slaves,” and if we turn to Europe we 
find that there was neither education,, re ward of ambition or opportunity. 
We pause to-day in wonder and admiration before the Pyramids and say : 
“ What wondrous works men wrought out in that olden time,” but when 


54 


we read that 20,000 men were obliged to spend their whole lives in those 
old quarries, we realize what value Egypt set upon a man. When there 
came into the world a gospel that taught the value of humanity, then the 
death-blow was struck at those old civilizations that held human beings 
in bondage ; when it was taught to the world that man was created in the 
image of the divine then man began to look up ; the slave toiling in the 
fields realized that he was indeed the Lord’s free man. Then the master 
began to see in his slave a fellow man, an image of the divine in humanity. 
When Christ taught the value of the doctrine of humanity there dawned 
a new light upon the earth filling it with glory. It was the gospel that 
taught that the human soul was valuable above everything else in the 
universe. Then men learned the great lesson that no moral lesson, that no 
social position, no throne, reaches as high as the simple plain adage that 
a human being stands by virtue of his humanity. As soon as this idea 
came into men’s minds there began the long process by which the race 
should be emancipated, when men should walk out into the light and 
liberty of the children of God. It was a long process from the time Christ 
preached to the people until this present day and it is now only partly accom¬ 
plished. It is true that the great doctrines of Christianity have been 
enveloped in errors from that dark age ; it is true that in these later times 
they have been misinterpreted by churches that have put forth before the 
world false creeds, but in spite of all this the grand truth lives on and can¬ 
not die. As Paul standing before King Agrippa held up his manacled 
hands saying, “ I would you were as I am except these bonds,” so says the 
Christian world to-day, “ I would ye were as I am to-day, except these 
bonds of a false theology.” The spirit of Christianity, is the spirit of lib¬ 
erty. From the time that this gospel came into the world we have seen 
the bonds and fetters of slavery drop off until we have realized the democ¬ 
racy of Christianity in a government of the people, by the people and for 
the people. Mrs. Gage wished to mention that we have not realized this 
government as yet. We have got one-half and we are going to have the 
other half. Men were bigoted in those old times when our country was 
founded, but they announced by a grand inspiration which must have 
come from divinity, the great principle that all were created free and 
equal, but they were not able to receive the other—the whole inspiration 
into their souls. They established only a government of church members 
but as they voted and gained in character and moral power by enter¬ 
ing into public life, they admitted those who were not church members 
and after a time those who were not property owners, and now we are 
asking that they should allow all women to vote. What the ballot has 
done for men it can and will do for women. We have seen how it has 
elevated labor, until in our country we find the laborer, the farmer, the 
mechanic among the noblemen of this country. What the ballot has done 
for men it will do for women. But I am told that if women vote they are 
so bigoted they will put God in the constitution, and men tell me that the 
most uncharitable people towards poor degraded womanhood is their own 
sex. What is the reason of this—why are women uncharitable, unkind, 
narrow minded? It is not the teachings of the church that has made them 
so. We learn that men were the same in the early days. No, it is because 
women are inexperienced people. We only learn charity through the 
bitter experiences of earth. Give the ballot to woman and she rises by 







55 


virtue of experience and responsibility, to a higher, broader, kinder wom¬ 
anhood. I am not afraid to trust our constitution in the hands of the 
people if we can have the voice of the whole people. There is danger that 
our constitution will be perverted and our liberties destroyed because we 
only have a representation of half our people while the other half are kept 
in bondage. It would seem that there is great danger in this United States 
that we should have a union of church and state, and in that case it would 
not be your church or mine that would come to the front but a more pow¬ 
erful one that would rule us all. I am not afraid of these results when 
woman has the ballot, but what I fear is that before the women of the 
United States are enfranchised the men of the state will destroy everything 
by inserting into the constitution those passages referred to this morning. 
Therefore it becomes us women to make all haste and keep intact this 
great republic that has come down to us. Don’t imagine that there is 
no danger. I have read an article lately to the effect that the most dan¬ 
gerous sign of the times was that the newspapers were almost silent upon 
a vital subject. There is always danger when everything is quiet. Just 
the half hour before the terrible cyclone sweeps over the land carrying 
destruction in its path, there is a deep and ominous silence. It will not do 
for us to be sleeping at our posts, saying “All is well.” It is always true 
that “ The price of safety is eternal vigilance.” When church and state 
are united we will lose what little liberty we have and give up all hopes of 
enjoying larger liberties. The greatest painter of the Russias has made a 
picture called, “All quiet upon Shipka.” It relates to the time when such 
great numbers of the soldier perished at Shipka of neglect and cold, and 
when their friends were inquiring about the condition of husbands, 
brothers and dear ones. The authorities gave no information except “All 
quiet upon Shipka.” This he has illustrated in three pictures. The first 
represents a soldier on picket duty, grand, upright and brave, with his 
weapon in his hand at the post of duty, the snow is falling all about him 
but still he stands undaunted. The next picture represents the same 
soldier standing in the same place, bat the snow has come up to his waist, 
it is falling thick about him, almost covering him over, still he stands 
faithfully at his post. The last picture represents the same soldier still 
standing at his post, but his hand is frozen to his weapon, the snows have 
come over him—his face is stiff and stark and cold—he is dead. So this 
country has placed woman as a picket to watch for the interests of the 
home, of the humanities, of the charities of the state. From time to time 
it is reported that all is well, there is no danger, our liberties are not im¬ 
paired, all is quiet, and yet as we stand at our post we are finding our¬ 
selves little by little snowed under, while all the world is saying : “ How 

quiet it is in the United States.” I don’t care very much for this discussion 
about the church. I represent a church which has a broader platform 
than this platform. It is a platform which recognizes all humanity as 
children of God. It was said that the church had not opened its doors to 
women—its colleges to women, but I remember that the first college in 
this country that received women was Oberlin College, a college founded 
by one church—and then the next college that opened its doors to woman 
was built by another church for the purpose of extending its doctrines, 
and it said to the women of the United States : “ Come and be educated 
and gain acknowledge of the truth.” I say also that a great many min- 


56 


isters—as the speaker who has preceded me says—are good, intelligent 
and broad minded men who represent churches and who open the doors 
of these churches to women and for the advancement of woman suffrage. 

Mrs. Gage. —Those colleges of which Mrs. Brown speaks, that 
first opened their doors to women, did not place their girl students 
upon an equality with their boy students; they were still kept in a 
position of inferiority. What she says about the churches opening 
their doors although true in some particulars is not true in general. 
I remember one occasion when I was speaking over the county of 
Ontario I hired a man to take me twelve miles to a place where I 
was to address an audience in a church and when I reached there 
not only the church was closed against me, but the door of every 
house in the hamlet, so that I was obliged to engage the man to carry 
me on to the next town, and the cause was simply that I was to claim 
the equality of woman with man and her right to every opportunity 
the world has to offer. But what we propose more fully to present 
in this convention is not isolated instances of good or of evil on the 
a part of the church, but its underlying principle of injustice towards 
woman, due to its foundation upon the doctrine that she brought sin 
into the world. We also wish to impress upon you the fact of the 
present imminent danger of a union between the church and the 
state. The teaching of the church has been of that character that 
men, even the most liberal, are tainted with the belief that women 
are not their equals, and that is the reason why Mrs. Brown and 
myself and others who have worked forty years for the cause of 
woman suffrage have not succeeded in obtaining it. We propose 
now to show the cause why; we also propose to arouse the people 
of the country to the dangers of the union of church and state. It 
cannot be reiterated too many times for the national welfare. 

Mrs. Bones and Miss Wixon will take the names of those desiring 
to become members of the union. 

Miss Eliza B. Burnz of New York, President of the School of 
Fonography, will now address the convention. 

WOMAN’S RIGHT TO REASON. 

It has always seemed to me that right was derived from capability. I 
am aware that this assertion, unqualified, might be construed to mean 
the right of the stronger to oppress the weak. But using the word “right” 
as meaning freedom to work for a good end, I infer that woman has a 
right to reason so far as she is capable of reasoning. But is woman cap¬ 
able of reasoning ? Can she thoroughly comprehend the relation of cause 
and effect ? The general opinion of men seems to be, as it has always 
been, that she cannot. That her answer to their “Whys” is a simple 
“because.” That the fact that things “ are as they are,” is a sufficient 


57 


reason to women why they are, and also sufficient for her, as a rule, why 
they should continue to be so. But is it woman alone who connects events 
which have no relation to each other, as cause and effect ? Is it woman 
alone who puts faith in luck instead of forethought, and in a supernatural 
providence instead of in due preparation? Is it woman alone who carries 
a rabbit foot in her pocket to ward off accident, or a horse-chestnut or 
small potato to prevent an attack of colic or rheumatism ? The fact is, 
that the unreason which is so largely prevalent in the world is far from 
being confined to our sex, and, as a cause for this general unreason, we. 
should remember that it is not so many centuries since the people—that 
is, the men—“ We, the people,” as the Declaration of Independence has it 
—themselves laid claim to the unrestricted right to reason. How many 
men do much independent thinking now ? Those who do are making 
considerable stir in the civilized world. But in what a small minority are 
they compared with the hordes of men who populate this earth ; beings to 
whom we must perforce, on account of their shape and functions, give the 
appellation of men, but to whom, if we define “ man ” as a free thinking 
and reasoning being, we must deny the right to the name. Slaves are they 
to tradition, custom and habit; not the savage races alone, but the nations 
that call themselves civilized. 

Until four hundred years ago the right of any man to reason ad libitum 
was restricted by those in authority ; notably, by priests supported by the 
state. Socrates suffered for free thought and free speech long before the 
Christian era, as Bruno did three hundred years ago. Up to the time of 
the Reformation no man or woman dare think, and no member of the 
Catholic or Greek church dare freely think or speak to this day. Witness 
the late anathematizing of Dr. McGlynn by the Catholic hierarchy, even 
here in so-called free America, simply for expressing his individual opin¬ 
ions on social questions, and that while st\ll affirming himself to be a 
devoted son of the church. Four centuries ago the monk Luther de¬ 
nounced the vicious practices of the Roman church and carried his revolt 
to a successful termination. He broke the spell that had been put upon 
man’s mental powers for a thousand years ; he protested against the 
shackles of ecclesiasticism which had fettered human reason ; he burst 
asunder the iron bands of authority with which both men and women 
had been manacled by the Romish church, and then he forged the chains 
anew and fastened the last link to a book, instead of to the pope. 

The Bible then became the oracle before which the Protestant soul 
bowed in awe, and whose literal commands it did not dare to question. 
And so when on the pages of that book was found the declaration that, 
“ The powers that be are ordained of God,” independence in the soul of 
man was crushed, and the doctrine of the divine right of kings was prom¬ 
ulgated and defended; and man was degraded, and the rights of humanity 
trampled on by despots and tyrants, who styled themselves “ vicegerents 
of God.” At length the revolution in England under Cromwell, which 
declared that subjects have rights which kings are bound to respect, de¬ 
cided the question for that country, and the declaration was sealed by the 
decapitation of Charles Stuart; and a hundred years later France empha¬ 
sized the new doctrine that “ governors exist for the benefit of the gov¬ 
erned ” by a blow on the neck of Louis XVI. so severe that, it is said, 
every sovereign in Europe felt of his own neck to ascertain if it was intact. 


8 



58 


Thus the principle of the right of revolution against tyranny and injus¬ 
tice found lodgement in the minds of men, without authority from the 
Bible, and even in spite of its injunctions, and a way was opened for fur¬ 
ther disobedience to its literal commands. Some of its most devout be¬ 
lievers refused to return fugitive slaves to their owners, notwithstanding 
that Paul returned Onesimus to his master. Christian nations now main¬ 
tain standing armies to bring desolation and death upon other Christian 
nations in case of affront—both nations professing belief in the divinity of 
him who said, “ But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but if a man 
smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also.” Christian mer¬ 
chants buy and sell and bargain and provide comfortable homes for their 
families, regardless of the injunction, “ Take no thought for the morrow ; 
sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Astors and Vanderbilts sit 
under the ministrations of Dr. Dix and Dr. Deems on Sunday, and per¬ 
haps, occasionally, catch a sound-wave from the uttered words of the 
oracle, to this effect, “ Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth but 
on Monday, and all through the week, they go on adding thousands to 
the millions they already possess. To come nearer home ; women put on 
their richest apparel, bedeck themselves with gold and jewels, and fix 
their hair in the most artistic and becoming fashion, and all this when 
they are preparing to attend a Christian church, to whose congregations 
Paul wrote, regarding the women, “ Whose adorning, let it not be the 
outward adorning of gold, or of plaiting of hair, or of putting on of ap¬ 
parel, but let it be the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.” 

Now, in what I have just said in reference to the open disobedience of 
Christians to the plain commands of the Bible, I am finding no fault with 
the revolutionists of England, France and America, nor with the hiders 
of fugitive slaves, nor with the Astors and Vanderbilts, nor with my sis¬ 
ters who appreciate the artistic and beautiful in dress. I wish simply to 
call attention to another assertion of that book, which says, “ He that 
offendeth in one point is guilty of alland thus to show that since the 
Christian world has dared to construe certain portions of the Bible in such 
a way as to harmonize with the present nineteenth century development 
of the Christian world, and to ignore some portion of the scriptures alto¬ 
gether, it is perfectly right and reasonable that we should take that ven¬ 
erable volume and adapt its teachings as a whole to the present develop¬ 
ment and present needs of society, and especially to the development and 
needs of woman. We find all around us women who, having awakened to 
their own capabilities, are taking up the work of life in spheres hitherto 
occupied solely by men, and make such a success in carrying on that 
work as to astonish themselves even more than their friends and the 
world at large. Women in shops and offices ; women as heads of business 
houses ; women as presidents of banks and insurance companies, and 
even of railroad corporations. Women superintending farms and riding 
over their cattle ranches. Woman professors, woman doctors, and woman 
lawyers ; woman teachers, woman preachers, and woman lecturers ; and 
with all these avenues of employment open to them, a far greater army 
of woman mothers and woman wives. Does it require no reasoning pow¬ 
ers to manage these businesses and professions, and make the success of 
them that women have made ? Especially, does it require no reasoning 
power to bring up a family of boys and girls so that industry, virtue and 





59 


honor shall rule their lives, and to do this, as many a mother has to do it, 
with the responsibility forced upon her of seeing every day that there is 
meal in the barrel. Friends, we will ask no more if woman has a right 
to reason. She has reasoned, she does reason, and, in virtue of her rea¬ 
soning powers, she claims and will soon receive a share in making the 
laws which she has to obey. 

And now that we have touched the suffrage question, I desire to say, 
with all earnestness, that I trust this association or society, whatever the 
form it may take as an organization, will plant itself fairly and squarely 
upon the basis of the demand for an educated suffrage. No person, native 
or foreigner, white or colored, should be allowed to have a vote unless he 
or she can read the ballot which he or she votes, and all the ballots prin¬ 
ted, distinctly and intelligently, and sign his or her name in a clear, legi¬ 
ble hand that can be unmistakably read. More than this, in case of doubt, 
the party desiring to vote should be challenged to read, intelligibly and 
understandingly, at least ten lines from some newspaper published on the 
day of voting. Why? Because reason, guided by intelligence, is the only 
safeguard for our free institutions. 

Tuesday, 10:30 a. m , Feb. 25th. 

Mrs. Gage on calling the convention to order said : I have this 
morning received a letter from a lady whom we expected as one of 
our speakers, Mrs. Mary A. White, of the First Nationalist Club of 
San Diego, California. I have also a letter from Alfred H. Love, 
President of the Universal Peace Union , wishing that society to be 
represented on our platform. Associations of various characters, 
very dissimilar in purpose desire to co-operate with us. They be¬ 
lieve our ideas to be true, and in view of the very short time since 
the first steps were taken towards calling this convention, scarcely 
four months, it is surprising how from all parts of the United States, 
we meet expressions of sympathy and encouragement. More than/ 
twenty-seven states are now represented. We have present with us 
delegates from Texas, and other southern states, from California on 
the Pacific Coast, from Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, South Dakota, 
the Western States, Middle States and Atlantic sea-board; twenty 
states and territories are personally represented, eight others by 
letter, besides those on the call—thirty-three in all. 

Philadelphia, Pa., Second Month, 10th, 1890. 

Matilda Joslyn Gage; 

Esteemed Friend— “ The Liberal Thought” is received and prized. 
Go on ? We cannot have too many good people like you upon the watch 
tower. I am for peace, the kind of peace that comes with deserving, and 
hence our motto in the Universal Peace Union, is: To remove the causes 
and abolish the customs of war. To establish the principles and live the 
conditions of peace. 

I am disgusted with the professions of peace of so called Christians who 
profess gold and live pewter. They excuse war and they vote supplies to 


60 


the army and navy and eat the very words they preach and pray in the 
church. The sculptor succeeds in bringing to view his pure, white statue 
by clipping off the marble. There are war clauses and anti-Christian 
sections in the constitution that need to be taken out rather than cram in 
words and phrases as though to off-set those that are in direct conflict with 
truth. Take the radical peace movement into your convention—your 
publications and your own good heart. Do you see the “ Peacemaker.” 
We are thoroughly unsectarian. We so love the good and regard it as so 
essential that we can’t afford to lose any, anywhere and at all times. 

“ Accept the good where’er it’s found 
Among your friends or among your foes, 

On heathen or on Christian ground 
The flower’s divine where’er it gi'ows.” 

Cordially, 

Alfred H. Love, 

Mrs. Gage then called upon Mrs. Emma Beckwith to read a tele¬ 
gram she had just received. 

Mrs. Beckwith prefaced the reading by saying: 

I was so pleased when this convention opened yesterday morning that 
I telegraphed to a lady whom you doubtless all know of, Helen H. Gard¬ 
ener, that this convention was booming. Before starting from home I 
told her this convention was going down in history. Miss Gardener said 
she would come if need be, from a sick bed. I telegraphed her yesterday 
that there were delegates here from all parts of the United States and to 
come if she possibly could. She says : 

Mrs. Emma Beckwith :—Hearty congratulations to Mrs. Gage and the 
convention. My heart is always with liberal work and my hands full of 
it. Good luck ! Helen H. Gardener. 

Mrs. Gage. —Helen Gardener was one of the earliest persons to 
whom I suggested the idea of forming this new liberal association. 
She also saw its need and until within a few days I had expected 
her presence at the convention as one of its speakers, but unex¬ 
pected events have deprived us of that pleasure. 

The Secretary will now please read the reports of the committees. 

Mr. Aldrich. —Ladies of the convention. I have here the report 
of two committees, which I will read :— 

ORGANIZATION AND PLAN OF WORK. 

Sec. 1. The management of the business affairs and plans of the 
Woman’s National Liberal Union shall be vested in an Executive Council 
consisting of nine persons. 

Sec. 2. The following officers shall be elected from among and by the 
Executive Council: A President, a Vice-President, a Secretary and a 
Treasurer, to hold office for one year or until their successors are elected. 

Sec. 3. The Executive Council shall have the power to fill all vacancies i 
and to create such additional offices as may be deemed necessary to fully 
carry out the objects of the Union. 


61 


OBJECTS. 

First. To assert Woman’s natural rights to self-government, to show x 
cause of delay in the recognition of her demands and to promote fearless¬ 
ness in the denunciation of such cause. 

Second. To preserve the secular nature of our Government and the 
principles of civil and religious liberty now incorporated in the Federal * 
Constitution, and to arouse public thought to the imminent danger of a 
union of Church and State through a proposed amendment to the Consti¬ 
tution the object of which is to recognize the Christian religion as the 
foundation of our Government and the true basis of our laws. 

Third. To show that the real foundation of the Church is the doctrine 
of woman’s inferiority by reason of her original sin—a doctrine which we *■ 
denounce as false in science and its foundation a theological myth. 

Membership to be secured by an annual fee of $1, and subscribing to 
the objects. Persons for local work under the general head of Provisional 
Committee, consisting of one person in each State and Territory are to be 
appointed by the Executive Council and known as State Managers. Work 
planned by the Executive Council. 

Mrs. Gage then called upon Miss Susan Wixon for the reading of 
a poem written by her especially for the convention. Its title,— 

“ When Womanhood Awakes.” 


WHEN WOMANHOOD AWAKES. 

No more shall error ’round her play 
In fitful moods and clouds of grey ; 

Or cruel fancies crush her down 
Where demons wait and furies frown, 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

No more shall bigot turn and rave, 

A ranting yet a cringing slave, 

At Truth who, in her garments white, 
Stands facing ever to the right, 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

No more shall sisters turn aside, 

With haughty tread and sullen pride, 
From those who walk in clearer light, 
Whose keener vision sees the right, 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

No more in abject fear she’ll cower 
Before a mitred, tyrant power ; 

Nor grope in darkness, pain and shame— 
A hopeless wretch without a name, 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

No more she’ll idly dream away 
Life’s splendid hours in trifling play, 

Nor think the whole of life to be 
To lose her own identity. 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

No more the story will be told 
By writers young and writers old, 


62 


That man but toils till set of sun, 

While woman’s work is never done, 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

The chains that bind her foot and hand— 
That hold her close in every land— 

Will drop and crumble in the dust, 

By force of their own ancient rust, 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

Her eyes are closed in slumber now, 

The poppy-wreath is on her brow ; 

But soon her night shall change to day 
And, ’mid the tombs, no more she’ll stray, 
—When Womanhood awakes. 

In horror will she view the past, 

That, vice-like, held her hard and fast, 

The coming time her mind shall dower 
With vigorous strength and helpful power, 
—When Womanhood awakes. 

The future day shall see her then 
Clothed rightly as a citizen, 

And she’ll behold with judgment clear, 
The sovereign rights that wait her here. 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

And man shall stand on grander height; 
Shall see the truth in larger light ; 

Shall rise from grovelling in the dust, 

To realms where dwell the true and just, 
—When Womanhood awakes. 

And all these things shall surely be, 

When Justice reigns from sea to sea ; 

Fair Freedom then, in fullest measure, 
Shall give to each her equal treasure, 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

How gloomy all the Past will seem ! 

A misty way—a dreadful dream !— 

With Superstition’s slimy trail 
O’er mossy bank and flowery dale, 

—When Womanhood awakes. 

O, rosy dawn in eastern skies ! 

Thy morning light the world supplies ! 
Joy-bells shall ring from shore to shore ; 
Anthems shall swell forevermore. 

—When Womanhood awakes. 


Mrs. Gage. — I hope this poem will be set to music and we will 
have it sung at every convention in the future. 

Mrs. Gage also announced an executive meeting after the close of 
the morning session. 

Giles Stebbins of Detroit, having sent a number of papers by Mr. 
Reed of Michigan to the platform for distribution, containing an 
article entitled “ Truth about Queen Isabella,” from which Mrs. 
Gage read, a lively discussion took place in reference to the pro- 


63 


posed statue in the Queen’s honor, to be erected at the Quadrennial 
of the discovery of America, 1892 . A lady from the new State of 
Washington had written :— 

“ Does it not seem strange that the Protestant women of America pro¬ 
pose to erect a statue to the founder of the Inquisition ? ” 

Mrs. Gage said : While we recognize the fact that Isabella aided Col¬ 
umbus at the last moment, even pledging her jewels that he should have 
money to start on his voyage of discovery, let us not forget that she sus¬ 
tained that Inquisition which brought torture and death to so many 
thousands of people for daring to think. If we erect a statue to any one 
it should be to the daughter of Queen Isabella, the brave Juano who dared 
to plead with her mother against such torture, and was in consequence 
herself imprisoned by that mother—Isabella. 

Mrs. Aldrich. —I am opposed to the erection of this statue to a woman 
who caused as much suffering as Isabella. I want to tell you something 
about our religion. I would not like to have it understood that we ladies 
are a godless set of women. Personally I believe that the ideas of the 
church come from the same religion of truth that is over us all and above 
us all. We may be over conscientious in some respects and go to extremes 
of fairness, but our one central idea is woman’s advancement. I do not 
wish it understood that we have no religion. 

Mrs. Mecca Hoffman; — Mrs. President: I wish to raise my voice 
against the women of this country erecting a statue to this Queen who 
devised such tortures against her sister women as well as men, on account 
of a difference in religious opinion. I would like Mrs. Aldrich to state 
what she recently saw in the old Catholic Church at St. Augustine. 

Mrs. Aldrich.—I do not like to speak of the dungeons far underground 
where people were confined, the cages and chains and remains of people 
imprisoned there on account of religion. I have not yet recovered from 
I the effect that seeing these things had upon my health. 

Mrs. Gage. — I now have the pleasure of introducing Mrs. Mar¬ 
ietta Bones of South Dakota, who will speak about liberalism in 
l that portion of the country, and I can assure you that there are 
T many liberal people there. Mrs. Bones was one of the very first 
I persons to sustain the idea of this convention. She is one of the 
I original liberals of Dakota. 

ft Mrs. Bones.— Madam President and Fellow Citizens : I beg your par- 
I don for calling you fellow citizens, forgetting my inferiority to yourselves 
\ before the law. Unfortunately the motto of my State of South Dakota 
i does not now occur to me, suffice it to say that it means in purport: 
I “ Trust in God and keep your powder dry,” or in other words : “ Fear God 
I I in the constitution and take care of the United States.” While there is no 
|j denying the truth that South Dakota is in need of help, it is an accident 
■' which is liable to happen to any country. Nevertheless at the next gen¬ 
ii eral election the enfranchisement of woman will be decided by the voice 
of the men, and there is a very good probability that we will be success- 






64 


ful. We will then be able to cite Dakota as the greatest State in the 
union, the land of the free in fact as well as in name. 

Not having had time to prepare a speech on account of illness in 
her family, Mrs. Bones read the following letter and address to the 
convention from Lucinda B. Chandler : 

Chicago, III. , February 19, 1890. 
Dear Mrs. Gage and Friends in Convention: 

It is a keen regret that I am not permitted to meet with you upon this 
occasion, and to unite with you in an endeavor to lift higher the torch of 
liberty,—so high that its rays may illuminate every mind in this land. 
There has never been, not even in secession days, so strenuous a need of 
coming to the rescue of our country as now, when an effort is in progress 
to destroy the fundamental principle of our national life. 

As 1 have prepared a paper to express somewhat my views of the situa¬ 
tion, and to indicate “ Some elements of danger in the Republic ,” I will 
close with earnest wishes that the deliberations of the convention shall be 
harmonious, wise and effective. In devotion to liberty and Americanism, 

Yours, 

Lucinda B. Chandler. 

SOME ELEMENTS OF DANGER IN THE REPUBLIC. 

There are two kinds of dangerous elements, either in individual or 
national life. One kind the pronounced, those which on account of abrupt 
or rugged manifestation, excite apprehension and arouse to action in 
defense ; the other of a subtle insinuating character, working insidiously 
with more or less secrecy, pervading the whole body, physical or moral, 
with poisonous and destructive elements. 

The defective plumbing of houses or the imperfect drainage of a city, 
that admit a diffusion of sewer gas in inappreciable quantities into dwel¬ 
lings until the greater proportion of the population become victims to slow 
poisoning, is a greater and more fatal danger than the outbreak of an 
epidemic or contagion. 

The keen alarm of the last state of danger sets in operation at once all 
sanitary measures and agencies for protection and safety. The unrecog¬ 
nized danger of the first works steadily toward the destruction of health 
and life in a manner that undermines constitutional integrity, before it 
is apprehended, and when discovered it may be too late to save. 

The elements of danger in our social organism to which attention is 
called at this time are of this insidious character. These elements are in 
the line of moral forces. They are in the potent realm of thought. They 
are mental, psychological, occult. 

The point of attack is the vital principal of Americanism, the funda¬ 
mental idea of our government that the consent of the governed is the 
rightful and just source of authority and power. 

By our constitution civil rights and duties are under the charge and 
direction of the State, where they properly belong,—and religious rights 
and duties are left with the individual where they properly belong. 

Could the question whether these conditions of our national life shall be 
preserved, be put to vote, no doubt the great majority of the people would 


65 


say aye to the question, shall our civil and religious liberties be preserved 
as established by the constitution our fathers framed ? 

The statement by Rev. W. D. Gray, secretary of a Sunday Reform Con¬ 
vention, held at Sedalia, Mo., would not be openly avowed by many, at 
present, though it has not been disavowed or criticised by the Sunday 
Reformers, at least not in any public manner. 

Imagine Patrick Henry and Abraham Lincoln listening without demur 
to Mr. Gray’s claim, as follows : —“To appeal to divine authority in our 
legislation would be to fundamentally change the law of our land, or the 
principle adopted by our fathers when they said that all governments 
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. I for one do 
not believe that as a political maxim. I do not believe that governments 
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed ; and so the 
object of this movement is an effort to change that feature in our funda¬ 
mental laic .” 

The Christian Nation says:—“One of the greatest hindrances in the 
way of National Reform is the false idea of civil government,—the theory 
so largely carried into practice in all national affairs, that civil govern¬ 
ment is a mere secular institution.” 

The Christian Statesman says :—“We advocate such a religious amend* 
ment to the constitution of the United States as will place all our Christian 
laws, institutions and usages on an undeniable legal basis in the very 
charter of the government.” 

The good women of the N. W. C. T. U. passed the following resolution 
at their last annual convention :— 

‘ ‘ While discountenancing all union of church and state , we do affirm our 
belief that God in Christ is the King of natiqns, and as such should be 
acknowledged in our government and His word made the basis of our 
laws.” 

I do not question the sincerity and worthy motive of the women who 
passed the resolution neither of those who in 1887 resolved to try to have 
put in political platforms the statement that “ Christ is the author and 
head of government,” but to my mind there is an asphyxia of reason, a 
dulness of perception, and a lack of foresight, which is a sure evidence 
that the dangerous element of Jesuitism holds sway through the religiou s 
fanaticism of these women. 

How much shorter would be the step from the “ undeniable legal basis 
of Christian laws, usages, and institutions , in our national constitution,” to 
the undeniable supremacy and control of the people and the government 
by ecclesiastical power, than is now the step to change the fundamental 
principle of the consent of the governed and to subvert the charter of our 
liberties by taking away our liberty of conscience, from the guarantee of 
these in our original constitution. 

The Catholic editor can claim that “ the Catholics of this country are 
decidedly opposed to a union of church and state.” Protestant Christians 
are working too zealously and effectively to bring it about, working for 
measures that must secure that end as the ultimate fact, if successful, for 
the Romanist to find a necessity to come to the front. Moreover, the editor 
doubtless asserts what is true of a large proportion of members of the 
Romish Church in this country. But, it is significant to note the paral- 


9 






66 


ellism of the sentiments expressed in the Catholic Review in November, 
1889—and those of the president of the W. C. T. U.—in New York, 2d of 
January, 1888, in reply to my letter in Religio Philosophical Journal , 
November 2, 1887. 

The editor says : —“ What the phrase formerly meant (union of church 
and state.) is done away with in all civilized countries, almost completely, 
although these countries may have Catholicity or Protestantism set down 
in the constitution as the State religion. The old state of union will prob¬ 
ably never return. Harmony is now the proper word for expressing the 
desirable relations of church and state, and this harmony must exist or 
the world will continue to endure the discomforts of eternal quarrelling ! 
The State must admit that the church ranks above it, and has a deeper 
interest in men than it can ever have. It must act accordingly.” 

“ Harmony is now the proper word,” says the Catholic editor. 

The president of the National W. C. T. U. does not assume the dictatorial 
tone or demand of the editor of the Catholic Review,—but she states to her 
own satisfaction at least, how political Christianity can make “ harmony ” 
between church and state. 

She says :—“ Could a political party have a better plank than “ Peace 
on earth, good will to men ? ” 

“ Could not the soundest planks ever laid down for the labor party to 
stand upon be found in the New Testament ? 

“Can the heart of God beat anywhere else more potently than in a party 
and a platform that allies itself to God as revealed in that Christ spirit 
which knows neither foreign nor native, neither bond nor free, neither 
male nor female, but lifts humanity to one equal level of opportunity and 
hope ?” 

The rivalries, sordid, ambitious plottings for place, the crookedness and 
dishonesty of “ policy,” per se, and the various forms of human weakness 
and infirmity that enter into political struggles, are to be made of no 
account according to this theory, if only the planks of the platform are 
taken from the New Testament. 

Our constitution and the Declaration of Independence are a gospel of 
equality, justice and fraternity. There is nothing in our constitution or 
institutions, except the low grade morality and unscrupulous dealing of 
politics and political parties, that hinders or stands in the way of indi¬ 
vidual acceptance of the message of love and good will. 

Native and foreign, bond and free, if not male and female, are lifted by 
Americanism now, to “ an equal level of opportunity and hope.” This is 
the essential principle of our national existence, and till the individuals 
composing the people are thoroughly imbued with this principle as a living 
active force, no planks in political platforms can lift them to the level of 
honesty and fair dealing. It is to be supposed that the Sunday Reformers 
are proper material for the 11 pure political party," which Mrs. Hobart, 
president of the State W. C. T. U. of Minnesota, expects to help bring 
about the blessed time “ When Christ shall be king of this world’s customs 
and commerce, king of its revenues and its resources, king of its farms and 
its factories, king of its mints and mines, king of its press and its politics, 
king of its courts, its judges, its juries, and its laws,” and it would not be 
supposed that a ‘ ‘ pure political party ” would resort to methods that 
resemble the tricks and frauds and falsifying and wire pulling of the sec- 


67 


ular party in politics. But a review of some of their methods is not quite 
assuring that a Christian party in politics would lift all to an equal level of 
pure honesty. The Detroit Commercial Advertizer of May, 1889, makes the 
following editorial statement:— “ The National Religious Reform advocates 
whose bill making religious education a constitutional proviso, and whose 
petition for a Sunday observance law are being quietly pushed * * * 

made an extraordinary announcement some months ago. It was asserted 
officially that over 14,000,000 signatures had been obtained to petitions for 
the movement, and the impression was created that that number of per¬ 
sons had affixed their signatures to these petitions.” A quiet investigation 
was made by some of those who had obtained 30,000 signatures in opposi¬ 
tion to this movement, and the Advertizer says :—“ The result has been to 
expose a most deliberate misrepresentation of facts. Instead of 14,174,744 
signatures there are but 407 individual signatures, the remainder being 
representative signatures by endorsements of bodies and meetings. For 
instance, Cardinal Gibbons wrote, “I am happy to add my name,” and 
7,000,000 Catholics, children as well as adults, were entered in bulk as 
signers of the petition.” If the purity of the “pure party in politics ” is 
foreshadowed by such misrepresentation we may take courage that the 
evils we have in secular partyism are no worse than those we know not 
of, should the party of pure politics have made ‘’ legal the usages and 
institutions ” that can count 7,000,000 names on a petition because one man 
in a high position in a church was “happy to add his name.” We may 
well ask what is the hidden force that impels these people who are no 
doubt honestly endeavoring to make our national life better, to resort to 
such tricks and misrepresentations. Consciously or unconsciously they 
are working in accord with the well known doctrine of Jesuitism, that the 
end justifies the means. The ballot box stuffer does but the same thing, 
and from the same standpoint, and never an instance when one vote was 
multiplied by 7,000,000 ! A W. C. T. U. report in 1889, stated that “ The 
petition for the Sabbath law was sent to the ministers of all denominations, 
to he signed by the proper officials on behalf of the church .” Then these 
petitions are represented as containing tens of thousands of signatures of 
persons who may have never seen or even heard of them. 

Another element that would belong to the Christian party in politics is 
indicated by an expression of Dr. Browne, in the Pittsburg National Re¬ 
form convention of 1874. He said : “There is no more persistent man 
alive than the typical representative American office seeker. Of that class, 
the most of those who have not yet found whether they are for Christ or 
not, or who are openly decrying this movement, are ready to be its firm 
friends as soon as they acquire wisdom to discern the signs of the times, 
and are assured of its speedy success.” What an uplifting agency such a 
reform political party must be which counts on the accession of the 
“ persistent office seeker,” who is equally ready to say good Lord or good 
devil, so that he gets his hand well hold of the public purse, or climbs to some 
coveted place of distinction or fame ! The record of the past shows that 
a religious regime in politics corrupts both politics and religion. There 
has been no such marked change and purification of humanity in this 
country as would warrant any different result, should the platforms of 
political parties be made of the ten commandments and the beautitudes. 

The labor party has already taken its stand on the integral principle of 






68 


“ good will to men,” and women. This party “Knows no foreign or native, 
no bond or free, no male or female,” but proposes by its planks of justice, 
truth, and good will, to lift all to an “ equal level of opportunity and hope.” 
In this it represents both Americanism and real Christianity. The church 
has had ample opportunity in this country to show itself the friend of the 
oppressed, the advocate of justice to the toiler. Not till the persistent 
blows of a Garrison and a Phillips had made an inroad upon the petrified 
moral sense of the people did the church as a body lift its voice against 
negro slavery. 

There is not only nothing in our constitution to prevent the church as a 
body, or Christians as individuals from making their votes count for “peace 
on earth and good will to men.”—but there is everything to support them 
in such action. The church has had the fullest liberty to advocate the 
essential principle of good will to men, and righteous economics,—that the 
“ earth is given to the children of men,” by the Creator, and that a portion 
for subsistence belongs equally to every person. The Christian voters have 
not had the slightest constitution impediment to a manifestation of love 
and good will to men, by seeking as voters to prevent alien landholding, 
syndicate landholding, speculative landholding. By such manifestation 
of love and good will they would have actualized and can now actualize 
the Christ principle. The Christian voter has had opportunity to vote for 
a money system that would “ lift all to an equal level of opportunity and 
hope,”—that would supply the necessary instrument of exchange to all 
citizens on equal terms, and remove the mortgage fiend and the usury 
fiend from the agricultural laborer. There is nothing in the constitution 
or even in politics to hinder this essential expression of good will to men 
being actualized by the votes of Christians. 

But the most harmful element of danger is not in the realm of economic 
forces, or the conflict of capital and labor, nor the mammon power relent¬ 
lessly crushing hope out of human hearts, and depriving the many of 
opportunity . The subtle, insidious, destructive element most to be feared, 
^ is the spirit that seeks to make a compulsory religio-political standard of 
citizenship. The church has had opportunity to seek the deliverance of 
thousands of poor working women in our cities who are bound to the 
rack of toil 16 to 18 hours per day, on the six days, and have neither time 
nor strength to set in order their place of abode except on Sunday. Before 
they try to compel Sunday observance by statute, why not investigate the 
causes that make toiling slaves of 40,000 women in New York city, who 
must either accept charity, dishonor or starvation. Industrial slavery is a 
shame to a people possessed of our boundless resources. But mental 
slavery would be more deplorable than this. The oath of a nominee for 
office that he believes in God, would not furnish with work, the million or 
more of men now out of employment, nor lift to an “ equal level of oppor¬ 
tunity and hope,” the thousands of women who lead a “ slave’s life and 
worse.” An unprincipled self-seeking politician is bad. A hypocritical 
cant-breeding persistent office-seeker would be infinitely worse. Before 
the office-seeker or nominee is required to take oath as a believer in God, 
it would be well if the church would manifast its “deeper interest in 
men,” by actual work for the helping and uplifting of the poor and unem¬ 
ployed. Before the church undertakes to compel the teaching of the 
principles of the Christian religion in the public schools, they need, to come 


69 


to an agreement among themselves as to what these principles are. Till 
the cobwebs of centuries are swept from their minds so that they can agree 
upon a character in the God they worship that does not violate the humane 
instincts and sentiments of frail human nature, they can best serve the 
country by keeping their religious discussions within their special domain. 
In this it protects and promotes genuine religion in the individual. There 
is nothing in the constitution to prevent the most extensive pfopag- 
andism by the church. That it does prevent a compulsory assent to and 
compliance with religious codes and requirements is its crowning virtue. 
The God of truth and love, of liberty, justice and fraternity, are in it — in 
its warp and woof. It stands for the dignity and worth of man as a soul 
with capacity to know and do the right. It is in harmony with the essen¬ 
tial Christ principle of loving the neighbor as thyself. It is the proper 
work of the church to cultivate this Christian principle. The constitution 
of the United States needs no word to express its sanctity, nor to indicate 
that we are a religious people, or a Christian people. This can alone be 
demonstrated by the lives and character of individual citizens, and by 
such just and equitable systems social, industrial and commercial as tend 
to establish justice and promote good will to men. The movement of the 
Christian party in politics on the lines of so called reform, to put the word 
God in the United States constitution, to secure a national Sunday obser¬ 
vance law, and to introduce religious instruction in the public school?, is 
in exact line with the demand of the Catholic editor, that “ the State 
must admit that the church ranks above it” and that “ it must act accord¬ 
ingly .” 

It is a subtle and destructive psychological force that pervades a large 
portion of the protestant evangelical ranks, which blinds them to the 
opportunity our American institutions and our grand United States con¬ 
stitution afford to make practical the Christ principle in their lives by their 
teaching and their votes, and leads them to seek the emptiness of suprem¬ 
acy as a religious element through political parties and platforms, and 
ecclesiastical power supported and enforced by statute. Our constitution 
contains the essential Christian principle of good will to men, and love to 
the neighbor. This is all that is requisite to a reasonable “harmony ” 
between church and state, as established by the constitution our fathers 
framed. This secures to religion and religionists fullest liberty. May this 
liberty to all of every class and shade of belief and non-belief be preserved, 
that our country may ever be the home of freedom to think and freedom 
to speak the thought. May this land be the university where true, honest, 
intelligent citizens shall be trained in the grand principles of American¬ 
ism, of justice, equality and fraternity, as established by the constitution 
our fathers framed, and opportunity shall be afforded to every person to 
expand to the full proportions of the divine image implanted in human 
constitution, unfettered by ecclesiastical powers and dogmas, and unhin¬ 
dered by religio-political statutes. 

Mr. John G. Jackson.— Mrs. Chairman, if not out of order, I should like 
to thank Mrs. Chandler for the points in her letter. They have been espec¬ 
ially interesting to me, and we all can now understand why these wonder¬ 
ful petitions circulating around can have so many names attached—I 
thank her for calling our attention to that. 






TO 


Mrs. Gage said : It is not Catholics alone who adopt the methods 
referred to by Mrs. Chandler in securing signatures to petitions. 
While in Dakota last winter, the member of a Protestant church 
there, a man whom I know, informed my son that the Bishop of his 
own church signed the names of everyone on his books, living and 
dead, to a similar petition. His course was precisely in line with 
that of Cardinal Gibbons, and was more reprehensible, as this Meth¬ 
odist Bishop did not even allow the dead to escape. The poor fellow, 
apparently not sure how far the power of his Bishop extended, said : 
“ I do not think this was quite right.” 

People seem quite easy in regard to Protestant action ; they do 
not fear danger, do not see danger and it is our duty to arouse them 
to a knowledge of its existence. A lady said this morning : “We 
know the church has been the power that has crushed everything 
that has come in its way.” That dangerous power is now seeking 
control of the government of the United States. 

Professor Coues will please read the resolutions. 

Prof. Coues. —I am requested to read a series of resolutions that 
have been adopted and which express the platform on which we 
stand: 

J Resolved, That it is essential to the life of the Republic that the purely 
civil character of the Government be maintained and that Church and 
State be forever kept separate; that the legal foundation of our Government 
is not any creed of Christendom ; nor any authority of the Church; nor a 
divine revelation; but it is simply the consent of the governed ; that the 
State has not grown out of the Church, but should outgrow the need of 
any Church and be henceforth and forever independent of the Church. 

Resolved, That the efforts now made by the Christian party to bring 
religion into politics in order to place a religious amendment in the Consti¬ 
tution of the United States, must be resisted, because the success of such 
efforts would make the Church the arbiter of the legislative functions of 
the Government and place dangerous irresponsible power in the hands of 
the priesthood. 

Resolved, That according to the principles of the Government of the 
United States of America, the Church and State are and must be forever 
kept separate. The State should govern its civil affairs, give its protection 
to every form of religious belief and secure freedom from molestation to 
every sect in the exercise of its religious sentiments, and therefore any 
amendment to the Constitution proposed by the so-called Christian party 
in politics is destructive of existing civil liberty and should be energetically 
opposed. 

Resolved, That the real endeavor of the Christian party in politics is to 
establish a papacy in place of the present secular form of government of 
the United States ; that a papacy does not alone mean a Pope’s one-man 
power in the Church, nor a claim of papal infallibility ; nor an immoral 
pretense of power to bind or loose sins, nor the celebration of mass, nor 


71 


use of holy water, nor the making of marriage a sacrament, nor the doc¬ 
trine of extreme unction, nor consecrated ground for burial, nor the claim 
of any number of sacraments, nor the establishment of parochial schools 
to teach children what they cannot understand, nor a celibate priesthood, 
nor any form of theological doctrine regarding Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory; 
but that a papacy is any Church asserting divine authority for its teachings 
and therefore claiming the right; to exercise civil power;—whether that 
Church call itself Roman, Greek, Anglican, or Protestant. 

Resolved, That the centralization of power, whether in the Church or in 
the State, is dangerous to civil liberty and to individual rights, and there¬ 
fore all attempts towards such centralization, either in Church or State, 
must be constantly and firmly opposed. 

Resolved, That as our nation is composed of people holding various and 
conflicting religious views, Roman Catholics disagreeing' with Protestant 
forms, both disagreeing with Jewish rites, and the Agnostic holding to no 
defined system, therefore it is wrong and unjust to impose religious 
instruction of any kind upon the pupils of our common schools, and in ^ 
simple justice to all people we denounce and oppose every kind of religious 
instruction in our public schools. 

Resolved, That the great principle of the Protestant Reformation, namely, 
the right of individual conscience and judgment heretofore claimed and 
exercised by man alone, should also be claimed and exercised by woman, 
who in her interpretation of the Scriptures should be guided by her own 
reason and not by the authority of any Church or creed. 

Resolved, That as the first duty of every individual is self-development, 
the lessons of self-sacrifice and obedience taught woman by the Christian 
Church, have been fatal not only to her own vital interests but through 
her to the vital interests of the race. 

Resolved, That every Church is the enemy of liberty and progress and 
the chief means of enslaving woman’s conscience and reason, and therefore 
as the first and most necessary step towards her emancipation we should 
free her from the bondage of the Church. 

Resolved, That the Christian Church of whatever name, is based on the 
theory that woman was created secondary and inferior to man and brought 
sin into the world, thus necessitating the sacrifice of a Saviour. That 
Christianity is false and its foundation a myth which every discovery in 
science shows to be as baseless as its former belief that the earth was flat. 

Resolved, That morality is not theology, but has a basis independent of 
“Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not” ; that right is right and wrong is 
wrong, not because any being in the universe so declares, but in the nature 
of things, the origin of right being in truth and not in authority. 

Resolved, That we seek the truth, come whence it may and lead where 
it will; with the Greek Plato we deem nothing so beautiful as truth ; with 
Hindu Mahrajah we believe no religion can excel the truth ; and with the 
American Lucretia Mott we accept “truth for authority and not authority 
for truth.” 

Mrs. Charlotte Smith.— From the audience. Mrs. President, I rise to 
ask a question Are there present any ladies—delegates—who represent 
the wage-woman especially ? 

Miss de Cleyre .—I always represent the working woman. 






72 


Mrs. Smith. — I refer to an especial delegate who represents either a 
Trades Union or Knights of Labor? I understand that there is not. 

Mrs. Gage. —We should be happy to hear from Mrs. Smith in 
regard to the cause she represents at a later time. I wish now to 
state that the resolutions read by Prof. Coues and the objects read 
by Mr. Aldrich at the commencement of this session, are the sense 
of this body, and our speakers having the resolutions and objects 
before them can more fully speak to the point. 

The convention is now adjourned. 


Tuesday, 3 p. m., February 25 , 1890 . 

Mrs. Gage. —Upon the convention coming to order Mrs. Gage 
said she wished to call attention to the Breckenridge Bill, of which 
copies lay upon the platform ; also a petition for signatures against 
it. This is a “ Sunday Rest ” Bill especially for the District of Col¬ 
umbia, introduced into the House of Representatives by Mr. Breck¬ 
enridge of Kentucky, and is of the same general character as the 
proposed National Sunday Law, carrying with it restriction as to 
labor, and punishment for every violation. Mr. R. R. Gurley of the 
National Museum has the petition in charge which should receive 
the names of all present. 

We will hear from our Secretary, Mr. Aldrich in regard to the 
election of officers. 

Mr. Aldrich. — Mrs . President and Ladies: The Executive 
Council of nine have elected the following officers:— 

Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, President; Mrs. Josephine Cables 
Aldrich, Vice President; Mrs. Mary Emily Coues, Secretary; W. F., 
Aldrich, Treasurer; Miss Susan Wixon, Mrs. Eliza Archard Conner, 
Mrs. Mecca Hoffman, Mrs. Marrietta Bones and Mrs. Clara S. Foltz, 
making and completing the nine. 

Mrs. Gage. —The plan announced in the program has been some¬ 
what changed. In all the conventions I have taken part in in the 
course of my life, and they have been many, I have never attended 
one that exactly followed the plan laid out; unforeseen exigencies 
invariably arise. 

I now have the pleasure of introducing Mr. William F. Aldrich, 
who will address' you upon “Public Defenders.” 

Mr. Aldrich. — Mrs. President , Ladies and Gentlemen: I will not inflict 
upon you any set speech, but I simply desire to call your attention to cer¬ 
tain views which appear to me to be practical and come from a business 
stand-point. The first, and for a large number of ladies present, the fore¬ 
most subject for consideration is the question of Woman Suffrage. I 




T6 


think we can to good advantage observe and profit by “ the signs of the 
times.” The question of Woman Suffrage is still a question for discussion. 
The tendency of the present time, induced by political chicanery and the 
use of money in elections, is among those who now have the ballot to¬ 
wards a contraction rather than an extension of that privilege or right. 
We see this tendency in the introduction of what is called the ‘‘Australian”, 
system of balloting. This system has been adopted in several states and 
meets with encouragement among many politicians. This being the case 
it would seem, perhaps, inexpedient at this time to urge universal suffrage 
for woman, because the same objection—perhaps in a lesser degree— 
might be urged against it as can be urged against universal suffrage of 
men. I have some objections to this Australian system of balloting, which 
I would like to present to you : The first and foremost objection is the 
method of secret ballot. To me the mere act of depositing the ballot is 
but—we may say—a precipitated result of free speech, and should be free 
and above board. A secret or close ballot always means that there is in 
the minds of some a desire to shirk the responsibility of their opinion, or 
a desire to change the voie, and not to count it as it was cast. If we are 
to limit the franchise—as suggested by the lady from New York who 
addressed us last evening—to those that can not only read, but also write, 
I would suggest that this Australian system be freed from its secret ballot 
portion and so amended that the voter must write his name legible on the 
vote, which would serve as in banks as a voucher where all frauds, mis¬ 
takes and errors, could be easily corrected and traced. [Applause.] If we 
will agree, and most thinking persons do agree, that the right of suffrage 
should be connected with education, then we have a great problem to face. 
The problem is to know how, to take this right which has been given to 
men irrespective of their educational qualifications and lodge it among the 
intelligent where it belongs. However, it occurs to me that a solution is 
not hard to find. If the States will immediately enfranchise women on 
the basis that I have mentioned—an educational basis—(not on a property 
qualification, because that alone being an English idea is deemed a wrong 
basis in America, for here poverty is no crime) you then would have an 
intelligent working majority which would be enabled to change the Fed¬ 
eral Constitution and make an educational qualification obligatory over 
the whole country. There are a great many other things that can be said 
on this idea, but I must get more closely to the subject matter of my 
discourse. I want to touch upon one point—on this union of church and 
state, or rather we might perhaps say on the religious side of the question. 
I have beep amused by the saying of an Irishman who remarked that 
“God could take care of himself almost entirely" and I think this remark em¬ 
braces a great truth—it is unnecessary for us to legislate for the Almighty 
Father. There is another point which I wish to emphasize ; if there is an 
undisputed fact as to the mission of the great Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, 
it was that he came to fulfil the old law, the Mosaic dispensation, and to 
create a new religion of purity, love and affection. Still ail the churches 
who call themselves Christian, have entirely neglected the new dispensa¬ 
tion and hold to a civil and ecclesiastical law based upon the old dispensa¬ 
tion. It seems a return to what might be called the magic of the Egyp¬ 
tians instead of the true teachings of Christ. We find, in fact, that this 
old Mosaic law is every where present. The doctrine of “An eye for an 


10 




74 


eye and a tooth for a tooth ” is incorporated either directly or indirectly in 
all of our civil laws. We are far behind the old Hebrew legislators in that 
we fail to provide even a city of refuge for the accused. No one can read 
the accounts of the trials, the accounts of the convictions, the accounts of 
cases daily reported in our newspapers without seeing that in a majority 
of cases there is no adequate defense for the accused. It appears to me 
that the duty of the state is to protect its citizens. In the ancient times it 
was said to be greater to be a Roman citizen than to be a king, because Rome 
defended her citizens, but now, if an American citizen goes to a foreign 
country and gets into trouble oris misused, the whole nation—at least one 
would think so from the newspaper accounts—are up in arms at the great 
insult offered to American citizenship. But let an American citizen be 
accused in his own country and come into court, and he finds the 
whole power of the state against him. He finds the Judge, Jury, 
Sheriff and Deputies, and the whole machinery of the court, paid by the 
opposition. The most intelligent—the best lawyers that can be ob¬ 
tained, fill the offices of District Attorney or other offices representing 
the prosecution, while the State which should look upon an accused person 
as innocent, until he is proven guilty, makes no provision whereby he can 
fairly present his case, unless he has money and influence. An accused 
person has not an equal opportunity to use the police and legal machinery 
in the presentation of his case nor in securing witnesses and evidence. It 
seems to me that this lack of opportunity for a poor man to be freely and 
fairly heard, has produced and is causing a lack of respect for all law and 
leads to anarchy. How can we remedy this state of affairs. It is useless 
to suggest the question unless we have a plan, practicable or impracticable, 
whereby this wrong and imposition can be lessened, if not wholly done 
away with. The plan we have to suggest—and when I say “we” I regret 
that there is not in the English language a word, a pronoun, which is not 
“ I ” but means “ two in one” because in this connection “we” means my 
wife and myself, who are in perfect accord on all questions that can bene¬ 
fit humanity. [Applause.] We suggest this plan : that the nation—the 
government, State, National and Municipal — shall employ as well as pros¬ 
ecutors a set of officers who shall be termed Public Defenders, whose duty 
it shall be to see that the accused have a full, fair and complete present¬ 
ment of their cases before the court. The only object for which Judges or 
courts are created is to obtain and administer justice, and it is particularly 
impossible to administer justice unless both sides are fairly heard. We 
have heard it plainly stated that the expression “American citizens” is 
not perfect because the women have not been allowed to vote. And does 
not the same proposition apply to American justice—do women have the 
right to sit on juries or decide cases where they are the most interested 
parties? The taxes are collected with the idea of being used to protect the 
citizen, but should he be accused—and no one knows how soon they may 
be accused and find themselves standing in court where there are mil¬ 
lions for prosecution but not one cent for defence. We may say that 
words are useless; they are useless except they are accompanied with 
a certain amount of reason. There is no lack of oratory in this country. 
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue—we may say—there is a vast 
reservoir of oratory fed by four hundred perennial springs and if the res¬ 
ervoir of words by some magic wand could be transmuted into water, 


75 


then we would indeed see a flood—greater than Noah’s flood. At the time 
of the flood, water was very cheap, and the idea of creating a band of 
Public Defenders, with the arguments in their favor, may be regarded as 
also very cheap unless there is some practical effort made to bring about 
this desirable result; to put this idea into form as a practical truth. We 
offer, as we have already offered in the little paper edited by Mrs. Gage, 
to donate $5,000 each if $100,000 can be raised to put the plan into opera¬ 
tion in five cities, and to secure such legislation, both state and national, 
as to make this idea a practical part of our judicial machinery hereafter. 

There are other points to which I could direct your attention, but we 
have with us a lady from California, a lawyer who has a large experience 
in these matters, and I think she will be glad to tell of many instances that 
have come under her observation, regarding innocent people who have 
been imprisoned simply because they had no one to defend them. 

Mrs. Gage. — I am happy to say that we have from the Pacific 
Coast—San Diego—one of the two most important women of Cal¬ 
ifornia in woman suffrage work, who has come to Washington to 
attend this convention and also to be admitted to practice in the 
Supreme Court of the United States. I am sure you will not only 
welcome her to the platform but also to Washington. Mrs. Clara 
Foltz. 

Mrs. Foltz — Mrs. President, Gentlemen and Ladies : Before proceed¬ 
ing with my remarks I desire to thank your Chairman for introducing me 
so kindly. It is words like this from American women that have made it 
possible for me to have whatever success has followed my attempts. I am 
not here with a set speech—in fact I had not expected to address this con¬ 
vention at all, but I would be most ungrateful if after the gratifying words 
of the gentleman who has preceded me I did not rise and give a few of the 
reasons for the faith that is in me, and why I agree with him in the posi¬ 
tion that there should be public defenders as well as public prosecutors. 
How often have I groaned in spirit as I sat at the bar before the court and 
jury and observed the prosecuting attorney, in behalf of the State and 
paid by the State, in his procedure against a man or a woman who had 
been charged with violation of the law of the land. That there should be 
public defenders is eminently proper and just; that it has not long since 
been adopted as a part of our country’s government is astonishing to me ; 
that it is possible that men should be arraigned by a Grand Jury or any 
other process of law, charged with crime, and be prosecuted by the State, 
on behalf of the State, with its millions of treasure at its back, while they 
may be penniless and unfriended, is to me an appalling truth. The Public 
Prosecutor often forgets the purpose for which his office was created. He 
ceases to be a Public Prosecutor and becomes a Public Persecutor, for while 
he knows all that is on the side of the defence he strives for the conviction 
of the prisoner. And if it is about election time, and he is trying to make 
a name for himself for election purposes, he harangues the Judge, confuses 
the counsel on the other side, misleads the jury, and often convicts an 
innocent man. Erect before the bar—in the name of law and justice, paid 
liberally from the treasury of the State or county, as it may be, he arraigns 
the prisoner as having committed a great crime. Of course everybody 



76 


knows that in the contemplation of the law a man is held innocent until 
he is proven guilty, but erect before the bar he stands and urges the con¬ 
viction of the prisoner. I have seen juries shut their eyes and close their 
ears at the approach of these cyclones of oratory. I might go on indefin¬ 
itely in speaking of the wrongs committed by these Public Prosecutors in 
the name of justice, and when I remember that in the face of the fact that 
the men who are prosecuted are often men without means charged with 
crimes of which ofttimes they are innocent, I cannot but think it is most 
important that some defence for them should be given by the State. With 
reference to the purposes of this convention, while not speaking officially, 
with reference to the woman question, and whether or not it is limited 
suffrage or no suffrage at all,—I have lived, to be sure, on the Pacific 
Coast and it is possible that you may think I speak without due premedi¬ 
tation or knowledge, but no matter—I do think that the women who have 
had control of the Woman Suffrage movement have led it to its defeat; I 
do think that the course pursued by the women who have assumed its 
management has brought it to such a condition that but for this brave 
movement it would have been an ignominious and disgraceful pass. It has 
been long understood by those who are brave enough to think without the 
consent of the priests, that the church had absorbed the energies of the 
women, that unless they could be made to understand that there was an 
individuality in them equal to their priests the Woman Suffrage question 
could never succeed. Mrs. Gage in her heroic calling of this convention 
has shown that she appreciates the situation. Those who lead the cause 
are standing back and throwing, I am told, all sorts of opposition in the 
way of this convention. They, themselves, know that they have made the 
most ridiculous failure of the whole thing. I say that forty years of argu¬ 
ment, so called, of attempts to obtain the suffrage, have fallen flat and 
to-day they cannot call a mass meeting of any respectable size in any part 
of the United States—and why? They have discussed men and discussed 
men. Women discussing the merits and demerits of their own sons ! Our 
brothers were always ready as they are now to give women equal rights. 
Men do not oppose it—the leading women of the cause know that men do 
not oppose it. Now as to its being expedient. We have enough voting in 
this country and unless there can be an upheaval and separation of the 
intelligent from the ignorant there is no use trying to benefit the country 
by increasing the suffrage. I have been a woman’s rights woman. I have 
suggested to my brethren at the bar that I would like to have the privilege 
of the ballot. Never in my life have I found a man who would refuse it 
to me of himself. Now woman the record is against you. We have been 
praised and flattered in prose and verse until we have thought ourselves a 
little better than the angels. In California we have two State Peniten¬ 
tiaries ; two industrial schools, two houses of correction and last week we 
laid the corner stone for a State Reformatory. These institutions are 
filled with men and boys. What are the women of America doing ? They 
pretend to hold meetings and clamor for the ballot when the prisons of the 
country are overflowing. All this is wrong. The quicker we get down to 
business the sooner we will arrive at the same conclusions, from which 
deductions may be made and start us on a career of happiness and pros¬ 
perity. The women of this country are responsible for the condition of 
things to-day. You had better stop right now discussing men, when there 


77 


is no cause for it. It is all wrong ; it is all unjust. Whatever men are 
you have made them. Nine months previous to the birth of life you are 
their custodians ; five years, it is safe to say, you are their sole guardians. 
Now if you cannot in that time impress upon them your superiority and 
nobility of character then to trust you with the ballot would be the destruc¬ 
tion of the Republic. Now ladies do not for a moment think that I do not 
love you, for I can assure you that my life has been devoted to the service 
of my own sex. Even the W. C. T. U., that has done as little good as the 
Woman’s Rights women, I have helped them as I could. I am a mother ; 

I have sons and daughters and speak feelingly when I say that it is possi¬ 
ble for a women to bring forth her children and teach them the principles 
she wishes to inculcate. In stating what I have about my own sex, I wish 
to say that men and women are pretty nearly alike only woman being the 
mother of the race is expected to do more towards uplifting the race than 
he possibly could. 

Major Blood. — I want to ask the last speaker a question. In California 
if a man is not able to employ a lawyer to defend him, does not the Judge 
assign a counsel for his defense ? 

Mrs. Foltz. —The Judge does do that very thing and easily picks out 
some indigent shyster or some kindergarten lawyer to defend the poor 
man, as against some sharp lawyer paid by the State, and the result is that 
the prisoner goes to prison every time. 

Major Blood. —Do you not know that to-day crime is lessened in San 
Francisco ; that in the early days no one could be convicted and for twenty 
years before the time we had the Vigilance Committee of 1856 no man’s 
life was safe because they could not convict 'Criminals there. There is no 
trouble in getting justice in the courts. If a man is not able to employ 
counsel they have men to defend the poor and unfortunate. I have been 
a probate officer in courts here and in Massachusetts. The truth is, my 
friends, there is too much sympathy with the poor unfortunate criminal 
and that is the reason you have so many penitentiaries and reformatories. 

Mrs. Foltz.— In reply to the gentleman I will say that in the early days 
of San Francisco there was much crime but it was not on account of sym¬ 
pathy for criminals. They get no sympathy in California, indeed if a man 
is charged with a crime it is almost equal to a conviction. 

Mr. Jackson.— Allow me to tell you a little story. A murderer was 
tried at Wilmington, Delaware, and he did commit the murder undoubt¬ 
edly. I was acquainted with the prosecuting attorney, now seated in the 
Senate Chamber and I found out that before hearing the witnesses they 
would take them aside a day or two before and put them through a sort of 
Star Chamber questioning on the case. I have known the gentleman to 
whom I refer to call a witness who knew a good deal about the case and 
tell him just how to give his testimony. In this case the man was guilty 
but there were extenuating circumstances which were suppressed in this 

way. 

Mr. Reed of Michigan.— Will the lady who last spoke please give us her 
views as to why woman has not the ballot since man makes the laws, 
administers the laws, and is willing to give her the ballot? 




78 


Mrs. Foltz. —Simply and solely because she does not want the ballot. 
If she did she would have it in twenty-four hours. 

Mr. -1 presume that I am the oldest lawyer in this house. I 

practiced law for many years in New York City and in other cities and 
yet I never knew one single defendant who suffered for the want of a 
defender. The Court always appoints a man and by no means necessarily 
a shyster or kindergarten lawyer as the lady calls them. 

Mr. Aldrich.—I will give one instance—the case of Giblin in New York 
charged with murder and whose case the New York World took up. He 
was assigned as you say, by the Judge to an attorney. One of the attor¬ 
neys I am acquainted with, a former United States District Attorney. He 
and his partner gave up that case on the eve of trial because “ there was 
no money in it.” The Judge then assigned a second attorney. This attor¬ 
ney, as proved by the New York World, was under an indictment for some¬ 
thing and there was an agreement between him and the District Attorney 
—Fellows—that he should play into the hands of the District Attorney, 
resulting in a sentence of death which was afterwards changed by Gov. 
Hill into imprisonment for life. 

Mrs. Aldrich. —It is for such cases as that that we want public defen¬ 
ders. They occur often. I am glad this convention is alive—this discus¬ 
sion is good for the soul. 

Mrs. Belva Lockwood. —I am glad to hear this discussion. For sixteen 
consecutive years I have practiced law and thirteen of them have been 
passed in court every day, in which I have defended several hundreds of 
criminals, where men and women are brought up and sentenced to thirty 
or forty days and are often perfectly innocent. I have known colored 
men and women too who have lain in jail for years because they had no 
money. At times I have called such cases to the attention of the court. 

I said, “ Here you have arrested a man, you have kept him for two terms 
of this court, now I demand that you shall let him go.” This has happened 
more times than you could count. I have heard of a man in Texas accused 
of horse stealing. The Judge appointed not only one but two attorneys to 
defend him. The prisoner looked at them for awhile then he says :— 
“Jedge is them my lawyers ? ” The Judge says, “ Yes, sir.” “ Both of 
them? ” “ Yes, sir.” “ Jedge I plead guilty.” 

I am glad this convention has taken up this subject for if there is any¬ 
thing that wants looking after in this country it is our criminal code. I 
wish the women on this platform would go into the police court to-morrow 
morning and see what I have seen and know what I have known. Do 
you know that there are fellow men kept on bread and water in solitary 
confinement—and what does that mean necessarily ? Have we got a right 
to take a man and confine and torture him—it means insanity. All things 
living have a right to live. We need to look into the prisons of this coun¬ 
try. Let us say nothing about the prisons of Europe—of Russia. Go see 
things as they are—look into the dungeons—see the unfortunate men and 
women, and you women go into the woman’s prison—is it not time that 
another Howard went through them ? 

Mrs. Collier of Montana.— When my sister from California mentioned 
what we consider a false relation of things it is a little hard to endure in 
silence. I, like herself, am a mother who make my own conditions, but 



79 


I know that few mothers do that. Who is it that during the nine months 
she speaks of, dominates that mother ? Who for the next five years is the 
head of the family, who decides every question in relation to the child’s 
teaching. It is a man who dominates the mother, a man who gives her 
her clothes, her name, her position in life in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred. 

Mrs. Foltz.— My good friend Mrs. Collier has got off an old Woman 
Suffrage chestnut here. Men do not dominate women one particle more 
than women dominate men. 

Mrs. Gage. —My friend Mr. Aldrich was offering a suggestion 
and I look upon it as an excellent one. As far as I am individually 
concerned were I called before a court I know I should be glad to 
be ably defended. 

To Mrs. Collier and Mrs. Foltz I may say that it is not the mother 
nor the father who dominates the child but the church. The first 
object of our association is for the purpose of showing the cause 
why woman has not been enfranchised; it is owing to the teaching 
of the church. I cannot agree with some of the speakers. 

Mrs. Lockwood comes here as a delegate from the Peace Conven¬ 
tion and we consider that fact a great compliment to our organiza¬ 
tion. As such delegate she will now address us. 

Mrs. Lockwood.—I am very proud to come here as a delegate of the 
Peace Association in which I have been so earnestly employed in the past 
few years and which is so very dear to my heart. 

No one can be called a Christian who gives money for the building of 
war ships or for carrying on a conflict. Can the mothers, wives and 
sisters of the soldier, the women of this country indorse the wholesale 
murder of their sons, husbands and brothers? Will the time ever arrive 
when war will be no longer a trade, but when the moral forces in human 
nature—the desire to do what is right shall be a greater guarantee for the 
protection of the world than the armed soldier. The Secretary of War has 
recently asked Congress for $180,000 to build war ships for our coast 
defenses and politicians claim to day that we have 13,000 miles of unpro¬ 
tected sea coast and that our forts are rotting and worthless. Well, have 
we not had this unguarded sea coast for four hundred years past, and 
what naval power has ever disturbed us. War settles nothing but the 
question of who is the stronger. Does the United States wish to imitate 
the example of the European countries—raise a standing army and great 
navy ? The editor of the Free Press says it would cost this country $150,000,- 
000 and it wouldn’t cost us ten cents to mind our own business and keep out 
of the road. It was my pride in Europe to say that our standing army 
was reduced to a minimum. Most women think it would be more gratify¬ 
ing to their pride to have a large army and navy, but not so. My pride 
and the pride of the United States should be her millions of law abiding 
citizens, in her free schools. They say in Iowa that they have a school 
house on every two mile section crossing. It is an old idea that a nation’s 
glory lies in her ability to kill men. We have territory enough and money 



80 


A 


to purchase more. The improvement of the water course of the upper 
lakes, the irrigation of the arid lands in Dakota and the north-west im¬ 
provements will much more benefit the people. Millions for war and not 
a dollar for the starving husbandman. We have had the National Pan 
American Congress for nearly five months. Mr. Curtis authorizes me to 
saj r that there is now before the committee of this congress a treaty of 
international peace and arbitration between the United States and all the 
Central and South American States ; in addition to this the Frenchmen 
have agreed to take up the subject of arbitration between the United 
States and France, and soon between the United States and Great Britain, 
we will have a National Court wherein all questions or difficulties that 
may arise between the several nations can be settled by arbitration,—the 
intervention of an arbitration court. But the American woman, Mrs. 
President, has been prevented from taking her.stand in the matter. She 
must come to the front. A slave mother is unable to give birth to the 
highest order of manhood. I would wipe out the qualification of sex and 
hold that it is not the women of the country alone ; that it is not the men 
of the country alone, but that women and men are a complement and 
supplement of each other and that they themselves must unitedly live so 
as to bring about the best results. 

Mrs. Gage.—I should be happy to hear now from any represen¬ 
tative of the labor question who may desire to speak. 

Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Pres, of Woman’s Industrial League.— Mrs. 
President and Ladies, and Gentlemen : I come here as the representative 
of labor. I was one of the first women in the Knights of Labor and the 
workingmen are ready to open all doors to me. Ladies for years I have 
been a spectator of the Woman’s Suffrage movement—and I ask what 
have you done for the wage woman ? To day in the capitol of the nation 
there are 125 houses of assignation, 2,000 saloons and not one refuge for a 
working woman outside of the station house and the Almshouse. I have 
travelled all over the country, visited women in the workshops and facto¬ 
ries and seen the whole thing. There are 500 churches in the city and 
suburbs of Washington and as I said before not a refuge for a working- 
woman. What are our women doing? Is it possible, with a capital of 
$2,800,000 spent in statues and monuments erected to men that there is not a 
refuge for a wage woman ? But we have dens of infamy I am sorry to 
say—owned by church members and rented by two well known real estate 
agents in this city—they dare not take it up—they say it is all in the course 
of business, but the working woman’s paper which I represent has pub¬ 
lished the facts and they would not dare to deny it. I ask you again as 
women what bill has ever been introduced into Congress to ameliorate the 
condition of the wage woman ? Ask John Wanamaker. I am a member 
of the Catholic Church and believe in going to confession, but I do not 
wonder that we are driven away from religion. Can I wonder when I 
know of women working for $3 a week ? How much it costs to be vir¬ 
tuous and good. In this city alone there are 20,000 victims of prostitution 
—where are our preachers ? In New England, in Boston, they express 
girls at two dollars a head. We ask what are the preachers doing ? I 
represent an unfortunate class who have neither money or influence, birth 
or breeding—nothing but poor working women ; the mothers of voters. 


81 


Before election what speeches we hear in the Houses about the working¬ 
men, but after election we hear no more until another election takes place. 
Is it not right that there should be some place of shelter provided—are 
there not enough people—enough capital ? It is to the Chief of Police that 
I must send a girl when it is the old story—landlord held the baggage— 
everything gone to the pawn shop—no work—out of employment. When 
I go to our Christian friends they give us a tract—“ trust in the Lord ” and 
I say no wonder you are losing confidence ; no wonder when the cloak of 
religion has served the devil. And the trouble is that women don’t take 
any interest in the matter—they say 4 ‘ It is not my business.” But it is 
somebody’s business—some unfortunate sister’s business. If you could 
only hear these women’s stories—but it is too late now to tell you all. 

I was the first women on the Women’s National league that asked that 
a statue be erected to Queen Isabella. Isabella did something for mankind. 
We want to recognize women who do something for mankind. What 
have the women of the White House ever done ? What have women done 
for women? We ask that a statue be erected in recognition of woman’s 
practical work. In regard to suffrage you must go before legislatures—ask 
man’s co-operation. It is only the weak, the effeminate that oppose Woman 
Suffrage—it is the little brained men that fear woman’s competition. Repre¬ 
senting the wage workers, the industrial women, I do not find it a popular 
movement. When I wrote for the popular magazines all doors were open 
to me—but now they say, “There goes that Charlotte Smith.” I perfer to 
be called a harmless crank. We want the moral code equally for men and 
women. Asa gentlemen said to me—a newspaper man—“We boys all 
stand in together.” So I say now 44 We girls all stand in together.” I don’t 
agree with you on all subjects, but when I say..to you that there are 20,000 
prostitutes in this city is it not a serious thing to stop and consider. Just 
think 50,000 shipped to South America in summer and New Orleans in the 
winter, to New Mexico, to Boston, the home of civilization, and Brooklyn 
the city of churches—shipped like a cargo of cattle. The value of the 
girl according to age—sixteen to twenty, mostly from the country. This 
business is looked upon as legitimate. Do the newspapers tell the truth ? 
No, they dare not. The truth don’t pay that’s where the trouble is. Let 
the working women vote you say—would it be any better—that’s the 
question. It cannot be any worse, therefore let us have the suffrage. 

Mrs. Gage. —The convention is adjourned for the afternoon. 


Tuesday, 8 p. m., February 25, 1890. 

Mrs. Gage opened the session with the reading of a letter from 
Mrs. Catherine V. Waite of Chicago, publisher of the Law Times, 
saying that both herself and her husband were heartily with the 
movement. From Judge Waite the convention received those pam¬ 
phlets so eagerly taken from the platform, “ Conspiracy Against the 
Republic,” “ The Springer Bill,” etc. 

Chicago, February 14, 1890. 

My Dear Mrs. Oage :— * * * We are so overwhelmed with business 
that we find it impossible to go down to Washington to the meetings. I 


11 






82 


am heartily in sympathy with your movement and will do all in my 
power to aid you. Use my name if you choose. 

Sincerely yours, C. V. Waite. 

{Expression of opinion as to the place of holding the next conven¬ 
tion were asked. A number of States competed for the honor. Both 
San Diego and San Francisco, Cal., were proposed ; Portland, Me., 
Chicago, Ill., Brooklyn, N. Y. Alabama was suggested, and on be¬ 
half of Wyoming, this letter was sent to the platform : 

Dear Mrs. Oage :—On behalf of the people of Wyoming I would respect¬ 
fully suggest Cheyenne, Wyoming, as the place for your convention. Our 
people are the exponents, practically, of your great movement and on 
behalf of our people I tender to you an invitation from near the center of 
our continent. Very respectfully, 

F. J. Stanton. 

Chicago seemed the point favored by the majority of the delegates, 
but the final decision falls within the province of the Executive 
Council. This question disposed of Mrs Gage presented the first 
speaker of the evening, a lady well known in Washington, now con¬ 
nected with the New York Press Association, Mrs. Eliza Archard 
Conner. 

Mrs. Conner: — Mrs. President Ladies and Gentlemen: Let me tell you 
why I am here to night. It is not to scoff at religion for the religion that 
the Holy Christ taught is the redemption of the race. But mark you, the 
Holy Christ never by word or deed said anything that would imply either 
the inferiority or subjection of womanhood—if he had I would have known 
that he taught a false doctrine. Very early in my life I had doubts about 
the current theology. With the best intentions I was never able to take with 
my small tape measure the exact size of the bricks in the golden pavement 
of the New Jerusalam. Neither could I tell whether the instrument I should 
play would be an E flat Cornet or a Jewsharp, so I was called a bad child. 
At church some Christians seemed to make such prayers and exhortations 
that it seemed as if Heaven would come down then and there, and when I 
saw those same people go out of the church and cheat their neighbors 
and act the tyrant in their families—I said ‘ ‘ if this be Christianity there is 
nothing in it.” If I was an unbeliever it was the hypocrisy of the church 
members that drove me to it. So I became an infidel, and an honest one. 
There was a time in my life, indeed, when I saw no reason to believe that 
there was any existence after this. I have learned differently now. I 
know that there is a place for us when we leave this frail house. When 
I was at the mature age of fourteen the woman who was in charge of us at 
school took the girls aside and warned them that I was an infidel—a danger¬ 
ous girl to associate with. Think what this ostracism meant to a girl of 
fourteen. A few more years went on and there was a young man who 
had a fancy for me. He took no pains to conceal this preference. Then 
sweet, gentle Christian mothers took him aside and said “ Beware of Eliza 
Archard she will destroy your religon—she is a dangerous girl.” Think what 
sort of religion that was that a word from a young girl could topple it over! 



83 


However, I may say that in the race between theology and myself—I won. 
More time went on ; I was married and wrote for the newspapers, still I was 
a free and honest speaker and once more old ladies of both sexes took my 
friends aside and said to them, “ Beware how you let Mrs. Conner influ¬ 
ence you—she is a dangerous woman.” And so the time went on. I suf¬ 
fered—God knows how I suffered, knowing all the time that I had only to 
say black was white in order to become a rich and successful woman. 
But I could not do it. I have passed my life among those who violated and 
hampered at every step the foundation principles of Christendom—protest- 
ants who rejected the vital principle of protestantism—the right of private 
judgment. And so I, who tried always to do as 1 would be done by, who 
strove with tears and prayers and nightly strivings to know the truth—I 
have passed through life labelled and ticketed—“ Dangerous Woman,” Do 
I look like a dangerous woman ? And this is why I am here to night. I 
seem to have gone through life with a padlock and chain to my lips and to 
night it is loosed for the first time. I have been announced to speak on the 
subject of woman and the church. Please except from anything I may say 
the Unitarian and Universalist Churches. Those denominations have 
dealt justly by women. In this very city a year ago I heard a most inter¬ 
esting sermon from Mrs. Olympia Brown, one that I shall always remem¬ 
ber. Further, I wish to do full justice to all the Christian Churches—they 
preserved for us through the middle ages the rules of learning but my 
objection is that they have stayed right there in the middle ages ever since. 
They simply stayed—and mark how the Universe swept grandly past them. 
And now I hear the well known voice of Mrs. Grundy screech—“ How 
dare yob—don’t you know that woman owes all to the church ?” Woman’s 
All! Let us see what this “All ” means. Taxation without representation 
in every country; tried by juries of men; obeying in dumb silence laws that 
she has no more hand in making than a sheep, Why their children are not 
even their own. They are torn from her though it tears her heart out and 
given to the father. Her earnings, her own property are not her own 
except in a very few States, and in many Christian States to day the very 
clothes she wears belong to her husband. A woman may keep a boarding 
house for forty years, bring up her family and support her husband hand¬ 
somely all that time, and when at length her tired soul takes its flight, 
even the newspapers say “ she died at the residence of her husband.” They 
won’t even let her have a home to die in. A woman cannot walk at night 
alone on the street in any Christian city without being mobbed and hooted 
and taken to the station house. There is no Christian country on the globe 
where a woman may walk in a country road alone after night fall with¬ 
out fear of being outraged and murdered. If this is woman’s All, then 
God help woman! But it is not even what advantages she does have that 
she owes to the Christian Church. On the contrary the early Christian 
Church forged the fetters on woman that it will take two thousand years 
to break. We learn that the first three centuries of Christianity 
tended to lower the status of woman. Under the Roman Fimperors she 
was progressing to civilization. Roman wives bought and sold property and 
and were progressing towards citizenship. Then came Christianity and 
swept this from her in one fell swoop. Read Gibbons’ History if you doubt 
me. Paul is partly responsible for this. It is narrated of Paul that he 
came up from Tarsus as a young man to Jerusalem. He loved the High 



84 


Priest’s daughter and she rejected him. It embittered his soul against all 
/ womankind. He owed a grudge against our sex and we have paid for it 
ever since. The writings of Paul gave a turn to the woman question that 
has resulted disastrously. I beg you to remember that it was the church 
and not the state that put that shameful word “ obey ” into the marriage 
service. The churches have no use for woman except for her support, and 
I verily believe to-day that the Roman Catholic Church and the leading Prot¬ 
estant denominations would see nine out of ten women buried forty feet 
underground before they would allow her to exercise a priestly function, 
yes, though that woman were the mother of God herself. Read of the 
church of John Wesley, how the women came and entreated to be ad¬ 
mitted as lay delegates to the Methodist Conference, asking in trembling 
tones to be received. “ No,” said their masters, “ Go to your homes, we 
don’t want w’ornen among us.” For the general conference there was one 
woman appointed a delegate,—that woman was Frances Willard. I looked 
to see Frances Willard gather her skirts about her and march out of the 
Methodist Church when her face was slapped there, but she didn’t do it. 
It is true they permit a woman to be a deaconess, they let her canvass and 
go around among the poor and mind their business for them—that is what 
the church has done for woman. Now let us see what woman has done 
for the church, for if all the women in Christendom were to march outside of 
church organizations to-day in a body, there would not be members 
enough left to keep up the devotions—that you know very well. Women 
have slaved night and day, and collected money, perhaps, for some little 
strawberry festival, and she has organized and carried on innumerable 
church fairs to get money, perhaps, to buy the minister a new suit of 
clothes. She has even done manual labor, sewing perhaps, to send some 
poor young man to educate him for the ministry and, as in a well known 
instance, have him come home and preach from the text: “ Let your 
women keep silence in the churches.” In her hardly earned vacation, 
instead of spending the time under God’s blue sky or at the sea shore, she 
sits in her boarding house, working for her beloved pastor the motto, “ I 
need thee every hour.” Her pastor tells her how she shall treat her hus¬ 
band and children, he even tells her what books she shall read and what 
thoughts she shall think, and she obeys. To me it is most humiliating— 
this subserviency of woman to the priesthood. Upon the platform stand 
all the preachers and priests of all the Christian churches and woman is 
down on her knees under that platform holding it up. Then think of 
what a fall of fat bishops there would be if she should suddenly crawl out 
from under them. And she will crawl out. She will not always submit 
to that degradation. “ The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind 
exceeding small.” The Roman Church sees more clearly than the Prot¬ 
estant Church the signs of the times and we hear that Pope Leo 13th is in 
favor of extending the right of suffrage for women, because he sees in the 
enfranchisement of woman the salvation of the church—but maybe “it 
won’t jump that way.” The dominant church has ever been the bane of 
human progress. Old abolitionists have told me how in the early days 
they begged the churches to help them. But the church said “ No, we 
preach the gospel, we have nothing to do with human slavery.” It was 
so with temperance work until temperance became popular and so it will 
be with our cause until we steal a march on them—Chicago them. Then 


85 


the churches will gush, “ See how we emancipated women.” You don’t 
know what this hour means to me—I seem to have been waiting for it all 
my life. I hear it strike the death knell of the theological Mrs. Grundy. 

It is the boom of the cannon across the waters announcing that woman is 
beginning to think for herself. Oh Church, you had a sacred fire but it is 
well nigh smothered out beneath bigotry and superstition, and so farewell. 
We would have brought you all our womanly love, enthusiasm and duty, 
but “ye would not” and so farewell. We turn our faces to the dawn. 
We follow the lead of those glorious old free thinkers, Jefferson, Franklin 
and Paine, who founded this government. We have entered upon holy 
ground and we pass on until we can make this broad land what they in¬ 
tended it should be—a temple filled with the light of love and liberty of 
conscience. We shall not stop to quarrel a thousand years as to whether 
the real presence is in the bread and wine ; we shall not argue for years 
over the dominion of duties. We shall accept for our motto the golden 
rule. We shall not strive to plant the name of God in the constitution, 
but we shall strive to bring the living God down into the heart of men. 
It will be the new Heaven and the new Earth pictured by John of Reve¬ 
lation. 1 1 have always believed in that land—I have seen it in visions and 
dreams. It is no mystical cloud land, but it is here upon the beautiful 
green planet. My friends—“ Freedom will come ere long.” 

Mrs. Gage. —There will be an executive and business meeting of 
the delegates at ten o’clock to-morrow morning in the parlor of the 
hotel. 

I now have the pleasure of introducing my friend, Mrs. Josephine 
Cables Aldrich, her subject being “ Harmonious Work.” 

HARMONIOUS WORK. 

The papers have credited me with supporting the statue to Queen 
Isabella. 1 hope the statement will be corrected as I do not believe in 
statues at all. Neither do I believe in steeples, there is money enough 
spent in that useless way to provide comfortable and lovely homes and 
lucrative occupation for all the poor people in this city. What a mockery 
our most artistic spires must be to an infinite parent towards whose dwel¬ 
ling place it is supposed to point while his children are shivering under its 
very shadow. I would have all the churches turned into school houses 
where our children could go every day instead of once a week and sit upon 
the velvet cushions instead of climbing up stair after stair and be huddled 
together like so many sheep. I would have loving tender women, whose 
delight it was to make themselves as beautiful as possible, teach them. 
This should be their occupation, their delight. Could they not make a glor¬ 
ious monument of a little child whose loving gratitude would reach the 
father every day and hour in behalf of their gentle teacher ? These ladies 
and gentlemen who spend their time in a mad pursuit for pleasure know 
not how amenable they are to these little ones who are not made of wood 
and stone, but whose very hunger and rags appeal always and ever to Him 
who said : “ if ye love me feed my lambs,” and is not all humanity one 
great body, and if the hands or feet are in pain is not the whole body ill ? 
Then if we would be comfortable and have real pleasure we should do our 
share of relieving the suffering of others. The law of compensation is in- 



86 


evitable and as “ we reap that which we sow,” and as none of us can 
gather that which we have not sown, how barren will be the heart of men 
and women who have done nothing to bless anyone but themselves. We 
are not Godless women, indeed we are very religious. We believe in 
Christ and his holy church invisible with its awful responsibilities, and we 
pity the churches built with hands whose doors are thrown open but once 
a week to admit those who are warmed and clothed and fed that they may 
indulge in the ceremony of prayer and listen to the word of God from one 
whose lips have never been able to utter the real name of the most infinite 
being. We do not believe in ceremonious religion of any kind, there can 
be no religion in ceremony. What is really meant by the command “Enter 
thy closet and when thou hast shut the door ” etc.? There are many good 
men and women in the church but they are ignorant of the occult religion 
of which their ceremonies are but a mere symbol. The church is not the 
place where I would go to get into the divine life. The ecstacy which 
comes from much praying in public is a dangerous condition. The only joy 
which a soul can feel which is really a divine gift is gratitude when he 
hears “ Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” My home is in the 
south among the freedmen. All will agree with me no one has more 
ecstacy in their ceremonial worship than have these unfortunate children of 
the earth, and none are more inconsistent. Their religion, their cere¬ 
monies, all are based upon fear, indeed so are all religions, and while I 
regret what the church has not done, I deplore much it has done. I was 
brought up by strictly religious parents, who like the poor freedmen 
believed in hell and the devil. They scared my timid little soul to death. 
They told me all morality was a snare, that good deeds counted me noth¬ 
ing. They actually spent hours and hours portraying hell and the devil to 
me, that even infants could not be saved unless baptized through their 
church, but if I believed in their special faith though my sins were scar¬ 
let they would be made as white as wool. This faith made them cruel. 
If our Father in Heaven tortures a child in hell for ever and ever for its 
disobedience, an earthly parent could not possibly be too severe. I stand 
before you to-day quivering in every nerve with fear of you, my thoughts 
are scattered and I am bewildered because of the shocks on my nervous 
system when a child from a so-called religious training. Mrs. Gage stands 
before you a brave, queenly woman, she never having been taught to fear 
anything, but to bravely investigate all things. I thoroughly believe lhat 
the Christian religion, as taught in the catechisms and by Christian parents, 
generally, has caused much of the nervous diseases of to-day. The fear of 
anything to a child is demoralizing even of the parents authority. My 
early suffering in this direction has developed an extreme sympathy in me 
for children. While Mrs. Gage has been gathering up historical statistics 
to get at the real abuses and injury to the advancement of the human 
race, of a false religion which through its churches is the Mother of Prisons 
where men are lashed into obedience by those who never knew an unsel¬ 
fish example yet count their beads and kneel before a crucifix. I have been 
looking into Alms houses, State Reform Schools, Asylums for Children, 
Insane Asylums and Church Houses, under religious auspices. I venture to 
say no one but a thorough old school Christian could go into all the hidden 
labyrinths in these places and not lose all hope in humanity. It was my 
misfortune to visit an Asylum in Rochester where there were many very 


87 


small children. I carefully noted the cold, cruel face of the good Christian 
matron as her watchful eye glanced threateningly at the poor little waifs 
perched up on their benches while they listened to a dissertion by a man 
utterly ignorant of the needs of those children about ‘‘Jacob’s Well.” He 
was quite as ignorant of the subject as the children, then he knelt in a long 
prayer and the little ones were obliged to kneel on a hard floor while the 
cat-like step of the matron appeared in all places at once. She finally 
pounced upon a little, rickety child with very large head and dragged it 
out for correction for disturbing the prayer which had not one word in it 
to do any human soul any good. I made it my business to talk with this 
matron, I found she was a Miss—had never been a mother but was thor¬ 
oughly a Christian and believed in the rod for disorderly children. I asked 
her what success she had with babies. She said : “ Very poor, indeed, 
they do not do well with us.” I requested a lady friend of mine to go there 
as nurse and found to my horror why these children did not thrive. Had 
this matron spent the time given to religious ceremony in holding these 
babes in warm arms to a warm breast and still warmer heart they would 
have lived to call her blessed and might have followed her example, and 
I think she would have been nearer the throne while occupied thus than 
she ever has been. And were the money which it takes to convict and 
hang a man used for his education while a boy, by men who believe in 
noble example rather than church creeds, we think the State would be 
saved much expense and the boys who live in dark alleys under darker 
influences would become useful members of society and the country saved, 
the crime of legal murder which legal murders create murderers while 
in the mothers womb. We believe that every child should have the right 
to a proper birth and be the first to claim attention from the great and good, 
and no monument or temple should be erected while human beings are 
unlooked after and neglected. 

I believe no one can sin against God save by inhumanity to man when 
one sins against himself he sins against his brother, and sinning against 
his brother he sins against mankind, the compensation of which is death. 
The world is sick with its sins against itself. Christ came to save, but we 
are not saved. The church teaches forgiveness for sin and there is no 
forgiveness. We shall sink deeper and deeper until we cast off the faith, 
that we can be forgiven for wrong doing and learn to obey the golden 
rule, then we will have no need of prisons or locks or bars and the invisible 
church of Christ will occupy all space and extend up to Heaven and down 
to hell and there will be rejoicing with great joy. 

Mrs. Gage. —I am sure you all listened with attention to the 
words of my friend Mrs. Aldrich. I can assure you that she is an 
extremely sweet woman with ideas refined and pure. Some of the 
wisest men in the United States, men and women, have been to her 
house to listen to her words of wisdom and have grown better for 
what they heard. 

I have now the pleasure of introducing to you Miss Voltairine de 
Cleyre. 

Miss de Cleyre.— I speak upon the true condition of woman in the 
present crisis. In a Free Thinker’s convention it is neither desirable nor 



88 


possible that we should all be of the same opinion. The church is the place 
where everybody is of the same opinion, but free thinkers admit that 
brains are constructed differently and feel that that means the right to 
exercise those brains naturally. Therefore I wish to say that my brains 
are so constructed that I am an ultra radical. Perhaps I am too radical ; 
perhaps I shall say something that will not represent the views of the 
whole body, but if I do please be kind enough to hold me responsible. 
There is a law of physics in regard to the impenetrability of matter and 
that law says that no two atoms can occupy the same place at the same 
time. It follows then that the motion of the smallest atom must be felt 
even to the remotest star through the whole universe. Correlative to the 
law of impenetrability is the law of equilibrium, by which atoms which 
are crowded out of place seek to regain their just equilibrium. Now man 
is a being composed of atoms, and his vital force must necessarily be gov¬ 
erned by the same influences that govern the atom, only that in humanity 
we call the law of impenetrability the law of human Individuality. If only 
our statute makers would get it out of'their heads that man is a specialty 
in the universe, having a special God, making special laws for his own 
special use. The law of the atom is the law of the human being—but that 
does not mean that an atom of wood is an atom of iron. These principles 
in nature are lying back of the history of the race. They are in the sea 
called tidal waves in the race we call them crises. The wave has a cause 
so has the crisis. The wave is like a terrible army—the crisis is the ter¬ 
rible outcry of an infuriated people seeking to gain their equilibrium. The 
world to-day is facing a crisis. It comes from well down in the sediment 
of humanity and those who are standing up upon the shore and looking 
upon the waters say, “ I see white caps ” and those that look still further 
say, “ The tidal wave is coming.” And the philosophers—those that live 
close to the water and study it, those people say, “ The equality must have 
been disturbed and the waves will rise, and the caps will clash and the 
waters will never be still until that equality has been restored.” Three 
hundred years ago a crisis like this did come from below and God pressed 
upon the sky ; and the sky pressed upon the earth and the earth pressed 
upon the lower strata of people until they said, “ We will think for our¬ 
selves though we die for it—and they did die for it. It is hard for the 
flame of a fagot to touch the tine flame of thought. Men have voted for 
one hundred years, but are they free ? They have piled authorities upon 
authorities, and yet what is the code by which the common people must 
live—and still in the face of the constitution of the United States, another 
crisis is approaching and the latter decade of this century bids fair to rival 
that of one hundred years ago—-the French Revolution. Political freedom 
has not made the people free, and slowly people are learning that it has 
not done so, slowly they begin to see that behind the powers of politics 
stands the power that makes and unmakes politicians ; slowly they begin 
to understand that freedom means the right to live, not the privilege to 
exist. The right to live—the right to be—and the people are beginning to 
ask why they have not got it. The tidal Wave is rising, the wave of a 
weary people. Too proud for further prayers to the God who writes no 
answer on his far off sky ; too sick of the promises of politicians ;— too 
hungry to wait longer—it will come and you must face it. Now in view 
of all this what is the inevitable result. This—that unless a stop is put to 


89 


the aggrandizing spirit of the church in its attempted control of the State, 
there will come an awakening such as the French Revolution—even here 
in the “ Land of the Free.” Now the attitude of church and state will 
produce a union of forces which will bring exactly this result. Why ? 
Because it will be for their interest to do so. The W. C. T. U. and other 
organizations propose to force people to stop work on Sunday—as if after 
working sixteen hours a day a man was to be forced to rest. What admir¬ 
ation I have for the constitution is for those parts of it which do not 
“ constitute.” Now what is the true action of woman in this crisis? As 
a slave desiring her liberty, she must oppose any union of those two 
tyrants who from time immemorial have crushed and dominated her. Do 
the sacred books treat us as cattle—and shall we read them ; they speak 
of motherhood as a thing unclean, and shall we indorse it—they have 
made a law of silence for us while looking to us to do the drudgery of the 
church, and shall we then be silent ? You ask me to be silent—ask the 
cataract to stop on the edge of a precipice. For myself I shall oppose not 
only the union of church and state but the authority that lies back of them, 
for the experience of ages has shown that in proportion as men were lib¬ 
erated came equality and peace. Then the solution of the whole present 
question is Canonical Independence. The right of every person is his or 
her natural share of the products of the earth—that means more to women 
than to men—because then she need no longer buy her living with the 
price of her body. It means the end of all coercion ; it means a world of 
liberty ; it means a condition of things so perfect as to leave no foothold 
for wrong. For saying these things I shall be called a traitor—it is said 
that such things appeal to the poor—to the tower instincts of humanity 
and are not respectable. But I thank you for the title. I always want to 
preach against the injustice of the times. On 36 and H St. last October a 
policeman struck a man on the head until his brains ran oht and a woman 
cried and begged him to stop and he stopped when he got ready. The 
next few days he was reprimanded and put on another beat—that was all. 
If you are logical, if you believe in coercion, then for pity’s sake join the 
Catholic Church. That is the only logical coercion. It is the only true 
tyrant—the only complete despot that is in existence. It was said to-day 
that poverty was no crime—but poverty is the greatest crime on the face 
of the earth Poverty may be no crime, but the poor man is a criminal. 
Poverty causes more crime, more depravity, more widows, more orphans, 
more of every trouble than any or all causes combined. Poverty is the 
parent of crime. Criminals are sick people, poor miserables who ought not 
to be punished because they are sick. Will it not be a lovely world when 
every little child has enough to eat—when woman will be really free and 
all will be free in that day when one man is not the robber of a thousand 
of his brethren. Little children will not then be a burden to the mother 
and a reproach in her manacled slavery. It is a dream you say but all 
accomplished aims have first been dreams -and there will be a terrible 
payment if it is long withheld. 

By request Miss Wixon gave a second reading of her poem, “ When 
Womanhood Awakes.” 

Mrs. Gage then said : I have been announced for a closing speech 



90 


entitled, “The Scientific Basis of Morality,” but as the hour is late, 

I shall not attempt to detain the audience for a full presentation of 
the subject, but merely give a brief outline. 

Man has made a more complete failure of religion than of any other 
subject. The Christian Basis of Morality, which is the theory of the sec¬ 
ondary creation and inferiority of woman, has been the origin of all the 
alms-houses, asylums, reformatories, jails and prisons now extant. While 
boasting of its charities Christianity fails to say that these charities are for 
the victims of its false morality. The development of the Christian religion in 
Catholic countries has been a celibate priesthood and celibate orders, and 
the consequent degradation of marriage; indulgence to commit sin for 
payment, and the consequent increase of crime and the maintenance 
of the money power ; the inquisition, teaching cruelty and the enjoy¬ 
ment of human suffering; papal infallability, destroying free thought 
and creating mental slavery; the inculcation of two codes of morals 
—the strict for woman, the lax for man. The development of Chris¬ 
tianity among Protestants has been the doctrine of election, that is, 
favoritism on the part of God ; an infallible book, equally as destructive of 
free thought and as creative of mental slavery as an infallible pope; a priest¬ 
hood between man and God ; the degradation of woman through the same 
doctrine of two moral codes, as shown by Perfectionism with its com¬ 
munal marriage system, and Mormonism with its system of polygamy; the 
general outlawry of women, in those countries where what is known as the 
‘‘Contagious Disease Acts,” exist, of which England and her Colonies is 
the most notable example, which has created a class technially known as 
* ‘Government Women,” and places all women within a certain radius of gar¬ 
rison towns, under “suspect law.!’ Each great form of Christianity, Catholic, 
Greek, Protestant is based on the degradation of woman. Each branch 
of Christianity has declared a “blood atonement” necessary for salvation, 
thus justifying murder. 

Felix Adler once said that in order to preserve the authority of the 
supreme pontiff, it became necessary to create a number of lesser popes, 
as Aristotle for philosophy, Ptolemy for Geography, etc., whose opinions it 
was treated as heresy to oppose. But within the last few hundred years, 
science has destroyed the authority of these popes. Columbus learning 
the rotundity of the earth from the Moors of Spain, sailed away for un¬ 
known lands ; Magellan twenty years later making the circuit of the 
earth, totally destroyed the Ptolemaic theory of its flatness, and the church 
claim for it as the centre of the solar system ; the heliocentric or sun as 
centre, was re-discovered—Geography and Astronomy were born and the 
“battle of twelve centuries” won. Seven sciences have been the most 
potent in this work of destroying the Christian and founding the Scien¬ 
tific Basis of Morality. Chemistry under the name of Alchemy, taught the 
once fluid condition of the rocks and together with Geology destroyed the 
six days theory of the creation. Botany searched the deeply buried fields 
of coal, finding there evidence of long and slow ages of growth. Philol¬ 
ogy, its modern birth due to Catherine II., of Russia, takes us to the rise 
of nations and through it we learn the domestic habits and religious 
beliefs of people so long past as to have left no other momuments behind 


91 


them ; while Biology, latest born of the sciences, treats of life itself, going 
back to the very dawn of creation, and here we find in opposition to relig¬ 
ious teachings, that the first principle of life is feminine, the faculty of 
self reproduction inhering in the protozoa. 

Had I the time I could bring scientists from every field in proof of my 
assertion, not alone, that the first form of life was feminine, but also that 
it requires a higher condition to produce the feminine than the masculine. 
But I will only refer to M. Alfred Binet, one of the most eminent mem¬ 
bers of the French School of Psychology, whose recently published work, 
on “ The Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms,” shows the varied wealth of 
vitality inherent in the kingdom of the Protozoan—that simplest form of 
life—in which every phenomenon that the improved methods of microsco¬ 
pic research have shown to be indicative of intelligence, will or feeling in 
these minute beings is fully discussed and analyzed, a most important point 
being that the nucleus alone is the seat of the nutritive, reproductive, regen¬ 
erating faculty. Reproduction as long scientifically known, is merely a form 
of nutrition, inhering alone in the feminine. It is also acknowledged that 
life does not depend upon organs, but that organs depend upon life, and 
the more complex the organism, as is the feminine everywhere, the higher 
is the form of life. The experiments of a thousand observers in the inter¬ 
ests of science alone with no ulterior end in view, in Botany, Entomol¬ 
ogy, Biology, have proven the feminine to be the first or creative principle 
and the highest result of all the reproductive forces. And for the truth of 
these statements I appeal to science, challenging the closest investigation 
in every department. 

With this brief and hasty synopsis of what I had intended saying, I 
wish now in closing to speak a word or two in reference to this convention. 
To bring it about involved very great work, but I am pleased to say it has 
been a success. In fact its success has been so pronounced that I am a 
thousand fold repaid for all that I have done. You will remember that it 
is less than four months since this organization was really planned for, 
although for a year thoughts regarding its necessity had been passing 
through my mind. But during the last few months I addressed many 
persons in different parts of the United States in reference to its form¬ 
ation, and received such favoring replies that I was encouraged to call the 
convention. I have rejoiced at the presence of so many men, as most of the 
speakers have in some form advocated Woman Suffrage and such speeches 
are as a rule mainly listened to by women. We hope that all present will 
give us their names and become members of the Woman’s National Liberal 
Union, to which, as you know, men are equally eligible with women. 

Thanking you for the patience with which you have listened during 
these two days, I declare this convention adjourned sine die. 


92 


A final Executive Session was held in the parlors of the Willard 
Hotel, at io A. M., Feb. 26th. Sophronia C. Snow was appointed 
State Manager for the District of Columbia. Mrs. Susan A. Hibbert 
was constituted General Delegate, with full powers, to confer with 
the various Working Womens’ organizations in reference to an 
alliance with the Woman’s National Liberal Union. 

Provision was made for printing one thousand envelopes and two 
thousand sheets of note paper, with name and officers of the society 
as heading. Three thousand leaflets of size suitable for an envelope, 
containing the Plan of Organization, Objects, Resolutions and list 
of Officers, to be used in disseminating our views, were ordered 
printed; also a thousand pamphlet Reports of the Convention. 


It is with regret that we announce the death upon March, 18th, 
of a lady who early identified herself with the plans of the Union. 
Mrs. C. A. Morgan of Wisconsin. A letter from her to the conven¬ 
tion will be found in our list. Mrs. Morgan was a brilliant woman, 
of radically progressive thought. She was a prominent member of 
the Wisconsin State Woman Suffrage Society, and also of the 
National Woman Suffrage Association. She was a strong, brave 
spirit whose aid would have been invaluable in our work and the 
loss of whose sympathy and counsel at this early date is greatly to 
be deplored. 




Woman’s National Liberal Union 


CONVENTION FOR ORGANIZATION 

-HELD- 


February 2^-25, 1890, 

WILLARD’S HALL, - * - WASHINGTON, D. C. 


ORGANIZATION AND PLAN OF WORK. 

Sec. 1. The management of the business affairs and plans of the Woman’s 
National Liberal Union shall be vested in an Executive Council consisting of 
nine persons. 

Sec. 2. The following officers shall be elected from among and by the 
Executive Council: A President, a Vice-President, a Secretary and a Treasurer, 
to hold office for one year or until their successors are elected. 

Sec. 3. The Executive Council shall have the power to fill all vacancies and 
to create such additional offices as may be deemed necessary to fully carry out 
the objects of the Union. 


OFFICERS, 

Matilda Joslyn Gage, President, Fayetteville, N. Y. 

Josephine Cables Aldrich, Vice-President, Aldrich, Ala. 

Mary Emily Bates Coues, Cor. Secretary, 1726 N St., Washington, D. C, 
W. F. Aldrich, Treasurer, Aldrich, Ala. 

Mrs Mecca Hoffman, Enterprize, Kan. 

Susan H. Wixon, Fall River, Mass. 

Marietta M. Bones, Webster, South Dakota. 

Eliza Archard Connor, 34 Vesey St., New York. 

Clara S. Foltz, San Diego, Cal. 

PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE, 

Consisting of one person in each State and Territory, to be appointed by the 
Executive Council and known as State Managers. Work planned by the 
Executive Council. 




THE CALL POE THE LIBERAL WOMAN'S CONTENTION. 


For several reasons the woman suffrage reform advances slowly. Men 
trained from infancy by the Church, to a belief in woman’s inferiority, are loath 
to concede her capable of self-government. Four new States have recently been 
admitted to the Union, neither one possessing a republican form of government 
as required by the Federal Constitution; neither one recognizing the right of 
self-government as inhering in its women citizens. Of Wyoming, now seeking 
Statehood, with a constitution providing for woman suffrage, the press declares 
that an applicant for admission, coming with this condition, may not find its 
entrance into Statehood thereby facilitated, but because of it, it “may be dis¬ 
covered by wary Congressmen to have insufficient population.” 

Such lessons as these should not be lost upon woman. 

Existing woman suffrage societies have also ceased to be progressive. The 
new-comers, and many of the old ones, fear to take an advance step, and from 
motives of business or social policy, cater to their worst enemy, the Church. 
We therefore deem a broader platform necessary in order to reach the many- 
sided thought of the country; to more clearly show the cause of delay in the 
recognition of woman’s demands; and to promote fearlessness in denunciation 
that cause. 

Again : A crisis in the nation’s life is at hand. The encroachments of “The 
Christian Party in Politics,” composed of both Catholics and Protestants—its 
aim a union of Church and State—were never as great as at the present time. 
The decrees of the Plenary Council, held in Baltimore, 1884, the speeches and 
resolutions of the recent Catholic Congress in the same city, the effort towards 
Parochial schools, &c., shows the drift of Catholic thought in this direction; but 
to no greater extent than is the like purpose of Protestant effort made known 
by the work of the National Reform Association, the American Sabbath Union, 
the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the discussions, canons, and resolu¬ 
tions of State and National Ministerial Bodies, together with the various bills 
before Congress for religious education in schools, Sunday Rest, &c. 

Therefore not alone to aid her own enfranchisement—valueless without 
religious liberty—but in order to help preserve the very life of the Republic, it is 
imperative that women should unite upon a platform of opposition to the teach¬ 
ing and aim of that ever most unscrupulous enemy of freedom—the Church. 

Signed by Represnetatives from Twenty-seven States. 



OBJECTS. 


First. To assert Woman’s natural rights to self-government, to show cause 
of delay in the recognition of her demands and to promote fearlessness in the 
denunciation of such cause. 

Second. To preserve the secular nature of our Government and the prin¬ 
ciples of civil and religious liberty no w incorporated in the Federal Constitution, 
and to arouse public thought to the imminent danger of a union of Church and 
State through a proposed amendment to the Constitution the object of which is 
to recognize the Christian religion as the foundation of our Government and 
the true basis of our laws. 

Third. To show that the real foundation of the Church is the doctrine of 
woman’s inferiority by reason of her original sin—a doctrine which we denounce 
as false in science and its foundation a theological myth. 


RESOLITTIOISrS. 

Resolved , That it is essential to the life of the Republic that the purely civil 
character of the Government be maintained and that Church and State be for¬ 
ever kept separate; that the legal foundation of our Government is not any 
creed of Christendom, nor any authority of the Church, nor a divine rev¬ 
elation, but it is simply the consent of the governed; that the State has not 
grown out of the Church, but should outgrow the need of any Church and 
be henceforth and forever independent of the Church. 

Resolved, That the efforts now made by the Christian party to bring religion 
into politics in order to place a religious amendment in the Constitution of the 
United States, must be resisted, because the success of such efforts would make 
the Church the arbiter of the legislative functions of the Government and place 
dangerous irresponsible power in the hands of the priesthood. 

Resolved, That according to the principles of the Government of the United 
States of America, the Church and State are and must be forever kept separate. 
The State should govern its civil affairs, give its protection to every form of 
religious belief and secure freedom from molestation to every sect in the exer¬ 
cise of its religious sentiments, and therefore any amendment to the Constitu¬ 
tion proposed by the so-called Christian party in politics is destructive of exist¬ 
ing civil liberty and should be energetically opposed. 

Resolved , That the real endeavor of the Christian party in politics is to 
establish a papacy in place of the present secular form of government of the 
United States; that a papacy does not alone mean a Pope’s one-man power in 
the Church, nor a claim of papal inf allability; nor an immoral pretense of power 
to bind or loose sins, nor the celebration of mass, nor use of holy water, nor the 
making of marriage a sacrament, nor the doctrine of extreme unction, nor con- 



secrated ground for burial, nor the claim of any number of sacraments, nor the 
establishment of parochial schools to teach children what they cannot 
understand, nor a celibate priesthood, nor any form of theological doctrine 
regarding Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory; blit that a papacy is any Church assert¬ 
ing divine authority for its teachings and therefore claiming the right to exercise 
civil power;—whether that Church call itself Roman, Greek, Anglican, or 
Protestant. 

Resolved, That the centralization of power, whether in the Church or in the 
State, is dangerous to civil liberty and to individual rights, and therefore all 
attempts towards such centralization, either in Church or State, must be con¬ 
stantly and firmly opposed. 

Resolved, That as our nation is composed of people holding various and 
conflicting religious views, Roman Catholics disagreeing with Protestant forms, 
both disagreeing with Jewish rites, and the Agnostic holding to no defined system, 
therefore it is wrong and unjust to impose religious instruction of any kind 
upon the pupils of our common schools, and in simple justice to all people we 
denounce and oppose every kind of religious instruction in our public schools. 

Resolved, That the great principle of the Protestant Reformation, namely, 
the right of individual conscience and judgment heretofore claimed and exercised 
by man alone, should also be claimed and exercised by woman, who in her 
interpretation of the Scriptures should be guided by her own reason and not 
by the authority of any Church or creed. 

Resolved, That as the first duty of every individual is self-development, the 
lessons of self-sacrifice and obedience taught woman by the Christian Church, 
have been fatal not only to her own vital interests but through her to the vital 
interests of the race. 

Resolved, That every Church is the enemy of liberty and progress and the 
chief means of enslaving woman’s conscience and reason, and therefore as the 
first and most necessary step towards her emancipation we should free her from 
the bondage of the Church. 

Resolved, That the Christian Church of whatever name, is based on the 
theory that woman was created secondary and inferior to man and brought sin 
into the world, thus necessitating the sacrifice of a Saviour. That Christianity 
is false and its foundation a myth which every discovery in science shows to be 
as baseless as its former belief that the earth was flat. 

Resolved, That morality is not theology, but has a basis independent of 
“Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not”; that right is right and wrong is wrong, not 
because any being in the universe so declares, but in the nature of things, the 
origin of right being in truth and not in authority. 

Resolved , That we seek the truth, come whence it may and lead where it 
will; with the Greek Plato we deem nothing so beautiful as truth; with Hindu 
Mahrajah we believe no religion can excel the truth; and with the American 
Lucretia Mott we accept “truth for authority and not authority for truth,” 

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